Global Gaming Business, October 2020 by Global Gaming Business

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GGB Global Gaming Business Magazine

October 2020 • Vol. 19 • No. 10 • $10

Meetings Expectations

Why conventions and trade shows are crucial to gaming destinations

NIGC NATION COVID RESEARCH CORDISH’S ROB NORTON AGA & REGULATORS

GLOBAL GAMES

The best and the brightest games from the major slot makers

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CONTENTS

Vol. 19 • No. 10

october

Global Gaming Business Magazine

20 COVER STORY

COLUMNS

A New Empire

14 AGA All Aboard

New life was injected into one of gaming’s most venerable brands when Eldorado Resorts completed its merger with Caesars Entertainment, taking over operations with a management pedigree dating back to legendary Reno gaming pioneer Don Carano.

Jess Feil

16 Fantini’s Finance Get Back! Frank Fantini

87 Making My Point Making Friends, One at a Time

By Roger Gros

Roger Snow

On the Cover: L to R. Tom Reeg, CEO; Gary Selesner, Las Vegas Regional President, Gary Carano, Executive Chairman; Sean McBurney, Regional Vice President/Caesars Palace; Anthony Carano, President, Caesars Entertainment Photo by Erin O’Boyle

DEPARTMENTS 8 The Agenda 10 By the Numbers 12 5 Questions

FEATURES

17 AGEM 92 Frankly Speaking

28 NIGC’s Dueling Roles

88 The Meeting Crisis

Former heads of the National Indian Gaming Commission, the federal agency created to administer the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act of 1988, discuss walking the tightrope between tribal sovereignty and federal oversight.

No sector of the gaming industry was hit harder by the Covid-19 pandemic than the meetings and convention business. Here’s why recovery support may be needed. By Bryan Wyman and Tom Zitt

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

96 Cutting Edge 97 People 98 Casino Communications

By Marjorie Preston

94 Goods & Services

With Sally Gainsbury, Co-Director, Treatment & Research Clinic, University of Sydney

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CONTENTS Global Gaming Business Magazine

GLOBAL GAMES 2020 Page 32 The worldâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s slot manufacturers were forced to deal with the global pandemic as much as the rest of gaming and every other industry, but by quickly pivoting to remote game development, the top suppliers barely missed a beat in the volume of new product. Here are their new product lineups, to which operators will look to provide refreshes of slot floors at a crucial time. By Frank Legato, Marjorie Preston and Bill Sokolic

34 AGS 38 Ainsworth Game Technology 42 Aristocrat 46 Aruze Gaming America 50 Bluberi Gaming 54 Empire Game Technology 56 Everi 60 Gaming Arts 66 IGT 70 Incredible Technologies 74 Konami Gaming 78 Novomatic Americas 80 Scientific Games 84 Synergy Blue 86 Zitro 6

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

Vol. 19 â&#x20AC;˘ No. 10

october

Discover a new element. The Cobalt™23 Gaming Machine, only from IGT.

Expertly crafted, the Cobalt™ 23 Gaming Machine is a shining example of IGT’s commitment to thoughtful design that enhances the player experience. Outfitted with two high-definition 23” screens, a familiar static button panel, and integrated cabinet lighting, this cabinet is designed to fit your unique needs and forge new opportunities for your floor. To learn more visit IGT.com/cabinets or contact your IGT account manager. © 2020 IGT. The trademarks and/or service marks used herein are either trademarks or registered trademarks of IGT, its affiliates or its licensors. Artwork, descriptions, game play, photographs, videos, and other product details depicted herein are subject to change. IGT is committed to socially responsible gaming. Our business solutions empower customers to choose parameters and practices that become the foundation of their Responsible Gaming programs.

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THE AGENDA

Vol. 19 • No. 10 • OCTOBER 2020

RIP Vegas? By Roger Gros, Publisher

evada has been trying to diversify its economy for years. When you’re so dependent upon one industry, as Nevada is on gaming, you’re gambling with your future, and state officials have understood that reality for quite some time. Always a sparsely populated state, Nevada is also a large state with huge tracts of empty land, even today. Reno was the state’s biggest city for many years, even after gambling was legalized. In this issue of GGB, you’ll read about the Carano family and how they sprung from Reno, along with many other legends of gaming, including Bill Harrah, and now have coalesced into the modern Caesars Entertainment. But Reno didn’t keep the crown of Nevada’s most important city for long. Las Vegas has held that title for decades, and therein lies the conundrum. As Reno receded as the capital of gaming in the state, it was forced to diversify. Native American casinos in California all but cut off traffic from Reno’s Northern California market, so the city retooled. Today, it’s home to Elon Musk’s Gigafactory, which produces batteries for Teslas. Other technology companies followed suit. Today, gaming is only an ancillary business in a booming Reno. Las Vegas, meanwhile, is the entertainment capital of the world. Efforts to diversify the Clark County economy have often been halfhearted and more complicated than in Reno. Any diversification would have to go hand in hand with the tourism economy that dominates Vegas. A recent effort by former Governor Brian Sandoval to bring a Faraday electric car factory to North Las Vegas fizzled, and the tech that’s now so important in Reno hasn’t made inroads in Vegas. In fact, the state and casino companies doubled down on tourism with a $1 billion expansion to the Las Vegas Convention Center, construction of a $1.9 billion stadium for the Las Vegas Raiders of the NFL, and a million-squarefoot convention center, the Forum, behind the Linq, built by Caesars. They all seemed like sound investments and a way to continue the growth of Las Vegas. Until Covid-19 hit. The stark emptiness of the Strip in Vegas

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

during the shutdown was a wake-up call for the state. Even with Reno’s diversification, Nevada is still heavily dependent on gaming taxes. And with no visitors, no planes and no hope, Vegas is a somewhat desperate place. Even after reopening, Strip properties are still struggling. To lure visitors, many casinos have lowered room rates, but at the same time have appeared to lower the standards of the people who arrive. There has been violence and dissent on the Strip as a result. Las Vegas is unique as a gaming destination. For many years, that was enviable. States and jurisdictions legalized gaming in hopes of becoming just a little bit like Vegas. Now, Vegas looks very unlike a recovering city. It smacks of desperation and despair. Visitors who do come back once may not be back again, at least until some semblance of normalcy returns. Whenever that might be. But Las Vegas has been here before—maybe not as deep in the hole as it is now, but it’s climbed out of lots of holes in the past. Las Vegas is the master of reinvention. When Atlantic City legalized gaming in 1978, many people wrote off Las Vegas, including people living and working in Vegas at that time. That sentiment has returned again with Covid. So the investments Las Vegas made in tourism infrastructure will be awaiting the return of visitors. Allegiant Stadium will open more slowly than expected, but Garth Brooks will undoubtedly rock the house when he plays his rescheduled concert in 2021. The technology built into the expansion of the convention center and Caesars’ Forum may be more important than the buildings themselves if shows come back with live/virtual format. When the meetings come back, entertainment will also come back, filling those massive theaters that host “residencies” of some of the world’s biggest stars. And don’t forget Resorts World, scheduled to open in 2021. Nothing makes a Vegas vacationer salivate more than a new spectacular casino resort. So don’t write off Vegas quite yet. There’s still a lot to like about that shining city in the desert, and as a Vegas transplant, I can tell you there’s a commitment to making this city great again.

Roger Gros, Publisher | rgros@ggbmagazine.com twitter: @GlobalGamingBiz Frank Legato, Editor | flegato@ggbmagazine.com twitter: @FranklySpeakn Marjorie Preston, Managing Editor mpreston@ggbmagazine.com Monica Cooley, Art Director mcooley@ggbmagazine.com Terri Brady, Sales & Marketing Director tbrady@ggbmagazine.com Becky Kingman-Gros, Chief Operating Officer bkingros@ggbmagazine.com Lisa Johnson, Communications Advisor lisa@lisajohnsoncommunications.com twitter: @LisaJohnsonPR Columnists Frank Fantini | Jess Feil | Roger Snow Contributing Editors Bill Sokolic twitter: @downbeachfilm Bryan Wyman | Tom Zitt __________________

EDITORIAL ADVISORY BOARD Rino Armeni, President, Armeni Enterprises

•

Mark A. Birtha, Senior Vice President & General Manager, Hard Rock International

• Julie Brinkerhoff-Jacobs, President, Lifescapes International

• Nicholas Casiello Jr., Shareholder, Fox Rothschild

• Jeffrey Compton, Publisher, CDC E-Reports twitter: @CDCNewswire

• Dean Macomber, President, Macomber International, Inc.

• Stephen Martino, Vice President & Chief Compliance Officer, MGM Resorts International, twitter: @stephenmartino

• Jim Rafferty, President, Rafferty & Associates

• Thomas Reilly, Vice President Systems Sales, Scientific Games

• Michael Soll, President, The Innovation Group

• Katherine Spilde, Executive Director, Sycuan Gaming Institute, San Diego State University, twitter: @kspilde

• Ernie Stevens, Jr., Chairman, National Indian Gaming Association twitter: @NIGA1985

• Roy Student, President, Applied Management Strategies

• David D. Waddell, Partner Regulatory Management Counselors PC Casino Connection International LLC. 1000 Nevada Way • Suite 204 • Boulder City, NV 89005 702-248-1565 • 702-248-1567 (fax) www.ggbmagazine.com The views and opinions expressed by the writers and columnists of GLOBAL GAMING BUSINESS are not necessarily the views of the publisher or editor. Copyright 2020 Global Gaming Business LLC. Boulder City, NV 89005 GLOBAL GAMING BUSINESS is published monthly by Casino Connection International, LLC. Printed in Nevada, USA. Postmaster: Send Change of Address forms to: 1000 Nevada Way, Suite 204, Boulder City, NV 89005

Official Publication

COMMITTED TO SUPPORTING OUR CUSTOMERS Through imagination, talent and technology, the employees of Scientific Games are committed to delivering systems, solutions, and cutting-edge products that empower our casino partners to operate safely and efficiently, and provide a state-of-the-art gaming experience for their players.

ScientificGames.com

SG Games & Jackpots

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BY THE

NUMBERS Net Gaming Win, Baccarat: July 10-July 20 Clark County

VeGAs ReBouND L

as Vegas continues to be one of the hardest-hit markets in the wake of the Covid-19 lockdown. When the casinos opened after being closed for three months, players didn’t rush back as they seem to have done in other jurisdictions. Las Vegas has become largely a locals market consisting of Las Vegas residents and Southern Californians within driving distance. But Las Vegas Strip casinos have had to deeply discount their room rates, which is evident from the chart at left which tracks revPAR, or revenue per available room. It’s far below the level achieved prior to the lockdown. On the other hand, baccarat revenues, long a bellwether of a strong gaming demand on the Strip, had a big rebound, on its way to almost normalized levels. Both charts were compiled with data through July 2020. The charts at right were just two of many produced by RGC Economics. To view the complete set, visit RCG1.com.

Pennies From Heaven

he latest Eilers-Fantini Game Performance Report for July isn’t about revenue, but about the breakdown of denominations and types of games offered on the floors of casinos that participate in its database (U.S. commercial casinos, 53 percent; tribal casinos 34 percent; and Canadian casinos, 13 percent). The data shows the overwhelming number of penny games in all categories of participants. It also highlights the importance of premium games (dollar and higher) as that segment continues to grow. As for the types of games, video reels rule the roost with more than 65 percent, but mechanical reels have been making a comeback and video poker/multi-games are also a growing segment. To obtain a copy of the EilersFantini Game Performance Report, contact Rick Eckert at reckert@ekgamingllc.com.

Global Gaming Business

Hotel Revenue per Available Room (RevPAR): July 10-July 20 Las Vegas Valley

Floor Mix - Denom and Category

OCTOBER 2020

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NUTSHELL

“They

5QuEstions Rob Norton President, Cordish Gaming Group this year, as virtually the entire gaming industry shut down amid the Covid-19 pandemic, one of Earlier the very few operators that remained in growth mode was the Cordish Companies. Despite a few Covid-related interruptions, Baltimore-based Cordish managed to keep construction going on two major projects that will open within the next year. Through its Pennsylvania-based subsidiary Stadium Casino, Cordish is on track to open that state’s first Category 4 “mini-casino,” Live! Casino Pittsburgh, by end of this year. By early 2021, Cordish will open Live! Hotel and Casino Philadelphia in the heart of the South Philadelphia Stadium District, home to all four of the city’s professional sports teams. Meanwhile, the company is launching its iGaming platform in Pennsylvania with leading provider GAN, along with an existing sports betting deal with FanDuel. Rob Norton, president of Cordish Gaming Group, spoke with Global Gaming Business Editor Frank Legato in August about how the company keeps growing during a difficult time. To hear a full podcast of this interview, visit GGBMagazine.com. GGB: You just launched your online gaming site, PlayLive! In Pennsylvania, becoming the first online gaming site to operate before a bricks-and-mortar facility was open. How did you get the Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board to agree to this? Rob Norton: We approached them about launching the site in advance and talked about the benefits to

1 2 3 4 5

the bricks-and-mortar facility. There was nothing in the legislation that prevented it. The PGCB has been an incredibly good partner in helping us get through the launch of this online site. It’s the first time we’ve ever done it, and we couldn’t have done it without their support.

What went into the decision to choose GAN as your partner?

We’ve been partners with GAN for nearly 10 years in operating a social casino gaming site. We did this exact same play when we were opening the Live! Casino in Maryland, only it was a social casino, not a real-money operation. We used the GAN platform for that site to recruit potential players for the bricksand-mortar facility. We had a relationship with GAN, and they were already active with other customers in Pennsylvania. We wanted to do this quickly, (so) it wasn’t a tough decision.

Said It”

“In the case of the theater, you can’t build it for 5,000 people and then plan to operate it with only 2,000. It’s not built that way.” —Scott Sibella, president, Resorts World Las Vegas, who hopes to be “past all this,” meaning Covid-19, by the time the $4.3 billion resort opens in summer 2021

CALENDAR

DIGITAL CONFERENCES October 6-7: SBC Digital Summit Africa. Produced by SBC Community. For more information, visit SBCEvents.com. DIGITAL October 14: G2E, Industry Leaders Discussion. Produced by the American Gaming Association and Reed Exhibitions. For more information, visit GlobalGamingExpo.com. DIGITAL October 21-22: Betting on Sports Europe. Produced by SBC Community. For more information, visit SBCEvents.com. DIGITAL October 27-28: Esports Business Summit 2020. Produced by Access International. For more information visit esportsbiz.com. DIGITAL October 27-28: G2E, Conference Program. Produced by the American Gaming Association and Reed Exhibitions. For more information, visit GlobalGamingExpo.com. DIGITAL October 27-29: ICE Africa. Produced by Clarion Gaming. DIGITAL

FanDuel is your other partner in Pennsylvania. Is that because they were also active in that state?

November 4-5: SBC Summit CIS. Produced by SBC Community. For more information, visit SBCEvents.com. DIGITAL

Yes, but quite candidly, we believe they’re the best-in-class operator in the sports betting business right now, and we believe we’re the best-in-class operator in bricks-and-mortar casinos. So, in this case, one plus one equals three. When we bring them on board for the Live! Casino in Philadelphia, it’s going to be one of the most exciting products to ever hit the East Coast.

November 10-11: 21st Annual TribalNet Conference and Tradeshow. Produced by TribalNet. For more information, visit TribalHub.com. DIGITAL

There’s a lot of competition in the Philadelphia area for sports betting—not only the casinos that all have books now, but the Greenwood Turf Club as well, which is right across the street from your casino. How will you differentiate the FanDuel sportsbook from others?

LIVE CONFERENCES

It’s part of our corporate DNA that we don’t shy away from competition. We believe competition makes you better. In this case, I’m very excited what we’re bringing to the market. Our sportsbook in Philadelphia is being developed in a way that will be a market leader.

November 17-19: SIGMA Malta, Malta Fairs and Convention Centre. Produced by SIGMA. For more information, visit SIGMA.com.

How were you able to maintain construction of the Philadelphia casino throughout the Covid crisis?

It really started at the corporate level. We took the Covid-19 situation very seriously, starting in late January, when it was becoming apparent this would become very serious. We started working on plans on the operations and construction side to deal with this. We did have some modest closures on the construction side that were mandated, but we implemented “Play It Safe,” which is our brand for how to respond to Covid in both our operations and construction divisions. Safety and health is our top priority, because if we do it right, everybody benefits.

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

December 7-9: World Gaming Executive Summit (GES), W Hotel, Barcelona, Spain. Produced by Velo Partners. For more information, visit terrapinn.com/conference/world-gaming-executive-summit.

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AMERICAN GAMING ASSOCIATION

All Aboard Regulators are an important element to the transparency of the gaming industry, and where there’s cooperation, there’s success

By Jess Feil

hrough decades of collaboration, the American gaming industry and more than 4,000 dedicated gaming regulators have supported community growth. Never before has this collaboration been more important. It would be understating the obvious to suggest that the pandemic has been disruptive to local and state economies and the gaming entities that support them. But working alongside each other, regulators and the industry have thoughtfully and successfully reopened the doors to gaming properties across the country. Because of their diligence, they have not only stayed open, but their communities have begun to see benefits again, too. Those of us in the industry know this doesn’t happen by accident. It’s because of the partnership we’ve established with regulators that the industry can see the light at the end of this tunnel. And there are some silver linings to how we’re working together now, too. Moving oversight hearings and meetings to virtual forums has enabled greater stakeholder engagement and transparency. This low-cost, highvalue adaptation should continue beyond the pandemic. Jurisdictions like Michigan and Pennsylvania have temporarily allowed the digital filing of some applications, saving licensees significant time and cost. Permanently moving this process to a secure digital format would significantly modernize costly and outdated mechanisms for licensees and lawmakers, while reducing or even eliminating the cost of storing voluminous applications for regulatory agencies. Several jurisdictions have streamlined the licensing and registration process by allowing would-be gaming investors to provide brief registration statements to state regulators digitally. Implementing similar registration measures or

waivers across more jurisdictions would unlock essential investments without compromising integrity, and enable innovations in gaming experiences and public health protocols to meet evolving consumer demand. The pandemic has also expedited efforts to give consumers payment choices on casino floors. Regulators in Nevada and other jurisdictions have eased the process for bringing new payment products to market that meet health of-

“

Working alongside one another, regulators and industry have thoughtfully and successfully reopened the doors to gaming properties across the country.

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

”

ficials’ standards for contactless transactions, and supplement casinos’ already rigorous responsible gaming and anti-money laundering measures. The collaboration between regulators and industry has created a gaming experience across the United States that is unrivaled. It’s why our destinations attract visitors from all over the world, and why people can visit our properties with confidence in safety, security, fairness and the expectation of a good time. Together, we’ve continued to innovate, changing with the times and shifts in consumer expectation. Time and again, we’ve succeeded. As we continue to navigate the consequences of the pandemic, extending the smart regulatory innovations that have kick-started our recovery will go a long way in enabling our continued, mutual success. Jess Feil is senior director, government relations for the American Gaming Association.

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FANTINI’S FINANCE

Get Back! While traditional gaming stocks continue to struggle, those with a sports betting connection are soaring

aming stocks have been recovering as the industry gradually reopened in recent weeks and months. Though still operating below capacity, business has returned, albeit at lower levels than normal. The future remains uncertain. Bulls look to the industry fully recovering in 2022 or 2023, and are valuing stocks on those expectations. Bears note the millions of people who are unemployed and warn of a recession to follow the pandemic recovery. Skeptics might also question the wisdom of bulls valuing stocks based on estimates so far into the future. During this time, there’s one kind of gaming stock that’s soared—those intending to capitalize on the emergence of sports betting and online gaming in the United States. That potential has been well publicized, with estimates that sports betting will grow from $1.5 billion a year in revenue in the U.S. to $12 billion or $13 billion in several years, and some forecasts that online gaming will reach $22 billion. The results of this anticipation have been nearly frenetic. Consider: • DraftKings has gone public and now has a market cap of around $14 billion. • Golden Nugget is spinning off its online operations into a public company through the increasingly popular device of technically being acquired by a special purpose acquisition company. It’s to be valued at around $750 million, or 6.1 times forward revenues. • Rush Street Gaming likewise is spinning off its interactive business into a public company, also going the SPAC route, as we’re learning to call these entities. It will be valued at around $1.8 billion at launch, or 5.6 times forward revenue. Rush Street Interactive, which expects to do $226 million in revenue this year, thinks it may eventually do $1.5 billion to $2.3 billion in the U.S. at EBITDA margins of 25 percent to 29 percent. And it’s playing in emerging Latin American markets, too. • Penn National stock has soared to all-time highs and has a market cap nearing $8 billion on excitement for the potential of its investment in Barstool Sports to market sports betting.

By Frank Fantini

• Churchill Downs, too, has hit an all-time high—$7 billion in market value—as it develops its TwinSpires online product and sports betting platform. • Caesars stock has equity analysts forecasting a doubling or more in price as they try to calculate the power of its vast player database combined with the sportsbook management of William Hill US, of which CZR owns 20 percent. • GAN is around 2.5 times its May IPO. • PointsBet stock has soared 1,200 percent this year. This activity involves some very big players like Rush Street Chairman Neil Bluhm and Golden Nugget CEO Tilman Fertitta. These aren’t starryeyed kids trading fractional shares on Robinhood. They’re among the soundest businessmen in America. The roster of big names now includes Barry Diller, whose InterActive Corp. bought 12 percent of MGM Resorts, motivated by optimism over online gaming.

HOLD YOUR HORSES And yet there is, and should be, cause for wariness. Not all of these players will hit grand-slam home runs. Is Penn National, for example, really worth 50 percent more than its pre-Covid high of February because it bought 36 percent of Barstool? Can PointsBet be worth its 1,200 percent increase when it’s still losing money? Some caution is creeping in among sell-side analysts. Thomas Allen of Morgan Stanley recently cut DraftKings and Penn National to equal weight, citing their big run-ups. Alice Li of Credit Suisse downgraded PointsBet, saying the company might not become EBITDA-positive until 2025, even with NBC pumping $393 million into the Australianlisted company and taking a 4.9 percent stake. Beyond valuations, there’s also the matter of the field becoming more and more crowded. Newcomers will have to contend with Flutter, owner of FanDuel, a multibillion-dollar company with years of experience. William Hill US has nearly 30 percent of the U.S. sports betting market now that Caesars and Eldorado have combined, and it’s bought CT Technology operations. It also has the world’s biggest player database, thanks to its relationship with Caesars.

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

DraftKings has considerable market share as a starting point. Penn National, through its own player database and Barstool’s 60 million users, will have potential similar to Caesars in terms of player outreach. Indeed, the Caesars and PENN-Barstool player databases are huge financial advantages in the online world, where player acquisition is a big and continuous cost. The competition for share in U.S. sports betting and online gaming will be an interesting war between giants and upstarts, gaming conglomerates and niche fillers. There’s enough potential for many winners. Our bias is to say size matters, and that companies like Caesars, Flutter and Penn National have advantages. But smaller players like Rush Street and Golden Nugget have shown their mettle, and modest gains can be big needle-movers for them. And, of course, in any gold rush, the sellers of picks and shovels can win whoever claims the gold. In this context, that means software providers such as IGT, Scientific Games, Kambi and GAN.

CANDIDATES TO GO PUBLIC The expected online and sports betting booms are also leading to a spate of companies going public through SPACs. Adam Steinberg of AM Steinberg Advisors has speculated on who the next ones might be. Among them are the U.S. operations of London-listed William Hill. Given the dichotomy between fast-growing William Hill US and its slow-growing U.K. parent, an IPO of the American operation might be the way to unlock its value. Other candidates Steinberg sees are Penn National Online, ROAR Digital, the joint venture of MGM Resorts and GVC, Caesars Interactive, and Sportradar. Sportradar is a niche company that supplies sports data to a range of clients, from companies to governments to sports teams. That a privately held Swiss company would go public in the U.S. may say something about the potential Sportradar sees in U.S. sports betting. Frank Fantini is the editor and publisher of Fantini’s Gaming Report. For a free 30-day trial subscription email subscriptions@fantiniresearch.com.

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AGEMupdate AGEM MEMBER PROFILE AmericanChecked is a nationally accredited global background and drug screening provider within the gaming industry based in Tulsa, Oklahoma. AmericanCheckedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s management team represents 100-plus years in the background screening industry. The company provides a robust menu of background screening products, including comprehensive criminal searches, drug screening, motor vehicle records, fingerprinting, credit history, references, verifications and even licensing history where applicable. Not all background searches are created equal, and neither are AmericanChecked customers. The firm works with each client to build screening packages that are specific to their needs. Every AmericanChecked customer is a VIP, and the team is 100 percent certified by the Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA)â&#x20AC;&#x201D;a customer service-focused staff. AmericanChecked has several new products that will launch this year, as well as products geared specifically toward the gaming industry and businesses located in Nevada. â&#x20AC;˘ Nevada fingerprinting for casinos. Soon, AmericanChecked will be a one-stop shop for all background screening needs with the addition of compliant fingerprint search services. The portable Watson Mini is the smallest, most affordable fingerprint setup, and can be placed conveniently at any office/location or taken on the road for job fairs and other events. â&#x20AC;˘ SuperClark/SuperClark Plus. SuperClark is a premium and expanded search of Clark County, Nevada court records. AmericanCheckedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s SuperClark search goes beyond what other screening companies offer by accessing five courts in the most densely populated areas. SuperClark Plus accesses 17 districts, justice and key municipal courts. â&#x20AC;˘ Social media monitoring. In addition to AmericanCheckedâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s Social Media Comprehensive and Essentials reports, companies will soon be able to receive ongoing and immediate notification if an employee posts a racially defamatory, sexually explicit, violent or potentially illegal behavior on social media. In todayâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s ultra-connected times, employees are often seen as ambassadors of their companies. AmericanChecked Social Media Reports as well as its Social Media Monitoring services will ensure that any companyâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s hard-earned good reputation stays that way. â&#x20AC;˘ U.S. Tax and Information Search. The U.S. Tax and Information Search is a reliable, cost-effective alternative to the Work Number that provides absolute verification of past employment and salary history by checking against IRS records. This search is available for AGEM members as of October 1, 2020. For more information, visit www.americanchecked.com or contact Greg Natale at 1-800-975-9876.

AGEM Board of Directors Actions for September 2020 â&#x20AC;˘ AGEM members were provided with information regarding the Nevada Department of Employment, Training and Rehabilitation (DETR) Fraud Update at the recent September meeting. It has been highlighted that more than 200,000 fraudulent unemployment claims have been made to DETR since the pandemic started, targeting many executive and senior management positions to take advantage of higher payouts. The problem has been made worse by a massive backlog. The department was overwhelmed by the large number of claims, as Nevada went from roughly 4 percent unemployment in February to more than 30 percent just months later, with gaming operators and suppliers hit particularly hard. Members were urged to monitor their own businesses and employees and respond quickly at ft.nvdetr.org/form/Fraud to highlight fraudulent claims and protect those wrongly caught up in the scam. â&#x20AC;˘ Former chairwoman of the Nevada Gaming Control Board, Becky Harris, who is now a Distinguished Fellow at the International Gaming Institute (IGI) at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, reached out to AGEM to encourage members to take part in a new initiative. IGI is conducting research through its Expanding the Leaderverse initiative in the form of an online survey, to establish whether or not genderâ&#x20AC;&#x2122;s influence and leadership roles in the gaming industry have changed as a result of Covid-19. The Leaderverse initiative promotes diversity and inclusion in the hospitality, gaming and tourism industries at the K-12, university and industry levels. To take part, people must be at least 21 years of age and currently employed in the gaming industry or have been employed in the industry within the past 12 months. To participate or ask any questions about the study, contact Becky.Harris@UNLV.edu. â&#x20AC;˘ The National Native American Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C., is the latest recipient of the AGEM/GLI Lasting Impact Philanthropic Initiative, receiving a contribution of $20,000 for the year. Created by AGEM and GLI, the initiative is a multi-year effort designed to identify worthy causes that will utilize direct contributions to flourish over the long term and provide a variety of assistance to multiple beneficiaries. The unique giving program will benefit many different audiences and be true to the idea of making a â&#x20AC;&#x153;lasting impactâ&#x20AC;? inside the gaming industry and beyond. This latest award will be dedicated in November at a date to be announced. â&#x20AC;˘ The decision has been taken to cancel the AGEM Cup Golf Tournament and Holiday Reception 2020. This yearly golf event was due to take place at Southern Highlands in Las Vegas during Thanksgiving week in November. Due to the pandemic and restrictions on large gatherings, it was thought unfair to limit the number of members who might want to attend. The event will relaunch in 2021. â&#x20AC;˘ Marker Trax, based in Las Vegas, is the latest company to be welcomed as an Associate Member to AGEM. Marker Trax is a patented casino advance line system that takes the risk out of issuing advance lines to patrons. This brings the total number of AGEM members globally to 184 companies, an all-time high.

Forthcoming Events â&#x20AC;˘ The G2E Virtual Experience hosted by the AGA and Reed Exhibitions will take place on Wednesday, October 14, and Tuesday and Wednesday, October 27-28. This new event, being held in place of the physical show, will include a kick-off session on October 14 with a general educational session, followed by a preview of the virtual platform event taking place later in the month.

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The AGEM Index increased by 61.16 points in August 2020 to 482.02 points, a 14.5 percent gain from July 2020. Ten of the 13 AGEM Index companies reported stock price increases as global markets continued to trend positively amid the Covid-19 pandemic. The stock price for Aristocrat Leisure Ltd. (ASX: ALL) increased by 8.4 percent, for a 23.89-point accounting improvement in the AGEM Index, while Konami Corp. experienced a 27.1 percent price jump an index of 21.26 (TYO.9766) stock that led to contribution points. All three major U.S. stock indices increased as the Dow Jones Industrial Average grew by 7.8 percent and the by 7.4 the NASDAQ 10.8 percent compared to July 2020. S&P 500 grew percent. Meanwhile, grew by

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Hail, Caesars! The improbable sale of Caesars Entertainment to Eldorado Resorts is producing a sea change, and creating a company that remembers the past but reflects the future By Roger Gros

he Caesars gaming empire has had a long and winding history. It started in 1966, with Jay Sarno’s idea for Caesars Palace, where he would deliver a Roman experience where every man— and woman—would be treated like a Caesar (remember, there’s no apostrophe in Caesars, because it’s an experience meant for everyone, not just an individual). But the actual empire itself was always on shaky ground. Sarno couldn’t cut the finances (partly because he himself was a compulsive gambler), so the Teamsters units that funded the construction of Caesars Palace took over. Then, when licensing became an issue because of reputed organized crime ties, Clifford and Stuart Perlman, owners of the Lum’s restaurant franchise chain, were brought in. But ownership of the company was always convoluted. Through the years, it was owned by Park Place Entertainment and Starwood Resorts. Finally, in 2005, it was purchased by Harrah’s Entertainment, which changed its corporate name to Caesars Entertainment, recognizing that the Caesars brand is one of the strongest in gaming. Of course, the purchase by Harrah’s stretched the company’s roots back to Bill Harrah in 1930s Reno, when he opened a bingo hall on Virginia Avenue. Ironically, the new owners of Caesars Entertainment got their start just down the street from Harrah’s, at a property recently sold to become a condominium project. The story of Eldorado Resorts is just as improbable. The world’s largest gaming company started in a little bingo parlor. But it’s not just a coincidence of geography. The way Eldorado runs its resorts is very Harrah-like. “There was only one Bill Harrah,” says Eldorado Chairman Gary Carano. “I remember growing up in Reno, working in the casino business, growing up at the Eldorado. Bill Harrah

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

Caesars CEO Tom Reeg, Executive Chairman Gary Carano, President Anthony Carano (l. to r.)

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Eldorado Reno, the origin of the Carano family empire

was famous for the way his properties were spotless. They were secure, you felt safe. ‘Cleanliness and security are next to godliness,’ was Dad’s saying. Having grown up in Reno with Harrah’s when it was in its glory—that was the gold standard.”

Eldorado Roots Gary Carano comes from a gaming pedigree that is undisputed. His father, Don, became one of the top gaming attorneys in Nevada after he returned from World War II and co-founded the law firm McDonald Carano & Wilson. As a gaming attorney, Don Carano gathered enough experience that he opened his own casino hotel in 1973, the Eldorado Resort in Reno. He married Rhonda, a woman he hired at the Eldorado, and produced five children, all of whom still have roles in the business. In the 1980s, Don and Rhonda Carano founded the Ferrari-Carano Vineyards in Sonoma County, California, and his interest in gaming began to wane. But that didn’t happen to son Gary. He played a big role in ramping things up on the gaming side, first with a partnership with Circus Circus (later MGM) in the construction of Reno’s Silver Legacy resort. It wasn’t until the 2000s that the Caranos began to look outside Reno for regional opportunities. By that time, Tom Reeg had become part of the company—and part of the family. In the 1990s, Reeg was a high-yield credit analyst at Bank of America when he met the Caranos and later started his own investment firm, raising money for Eldorado projects. Reeg participated in the purchase of what became the Eldorado Shreveport, then engineered the company going public by purchasing the publicly listed MTR Gaming in 2014. Carano says the company kicked a lot of tires before that time, because of the talent within the company. “We had a great bench of management,” he says. “We got to the point where we were tripping over each other, and not only family members, but our great group of managers, and we wanted to spread our wings.” The purchase of MTR not only enabled Eldorado to go public, but it also exposed the company to several regional markets. It was able to improve the performance of each property using the management strategies it had perfected at the Reno properties. “Early on,” says Reeg, “our suspicion was there were a lot of unnecessary marketing subsidies in the regional space in particular. And through those acquisitions, we had had the opportunity to test that theory and find that, indeed, there were subsidies that didn’t impact visitation, that we could adjust, and that that cash flow would fall to the bottom line.” A casual business dinner with Isle of Capri executives, including Rob Goldstein, whose father, Bernie, had founded that company, ended with Goldstein saying, “I feel very comfortable with you being the new owners of this company.”

Carano said the declaration surprised him. “I asked Tom, ‘Did you understand what I just understood? Like, we just made a deal.’ So, we felt there was a lot of low-hanging fruit there, and it proved to be a very good buy. Isle of Capri had put a lot of capital into their properties, thank goodness, over the last few years, before we purchased them. Because before that, they were lacking in capital, and it showed.”

Proven Success With Isle of Capri, Eldorado once again proved it had a management model and strategy that worked. And investors took note. Since the MTR deal, when Eldorado first hit the market in 2014, the stock price has increased tenfold. That kind of success got the attention of important people, and around the next bend in Eldorado’s winding road waited billionaire Carl Icahn, who sometimes uses the gaming industry as a toy, building and growing companies until he can multiply his investment many times over, and then moving on. In this case, says Reeg, the advance came from Gaming and Leisure Properties Inc. (GLPI), a spinoff of Penn National Gaming that became the first gaming real estate investment trust (REIT). He was talking to Icahn about buying the real estate assets of Tropicana Entertainment. “I got a call from Steve Snyder (GLPI CFO at the time) asking if we would be interested in operating and buying the operating interests in these assets. I said, sure, we’d take a look,” says Reeg. “We had done zero real estate financing at that point. Everything we had was owned on the balance sheet. With the Tropicana transaction, we were buying a little less than half the business. GLPI was buying the other half, in terms of what the lease payment would be, and we would get all the upside in the transaction. So, we were buying at a lower multiple. If we could drive the same operating upside we had driven in past acquisitions, you kind of turbo-charged your returns.” It didn’t take long before another opportunity arose—a huge one. Reeg says he began getting calls from Caesars shareholders, asking if he could look into the company, which had failed to reach its potential for almost a decade. So he reached out to Don Kornstein, a friend on the Caesars board, to assess the interest. “I told him, ‘If I’m getting calls from your shareholders about their unhapOCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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“Our view is, we make our money at the local level, from the customers. The more people you put between the front-line people that deal with them every day and the person making the actual decisions, the poorer the outcome.” —Tom Reeg, CEO, Caesars Entertainment

from a regulatory perspective. Several properties were sold by both Eldorado and Caesars to get the regulators’ nods, and even more as they approached the finish line. But the deal finally closed in July 2020, right in the midst of the Covid-19 pandemic. Carano said that caused a little consternation early on, during the lockdowns. “It was a critical time in March. When we’re getting close to all of our jurisdictional approvals, and closing in our financing, here comes Covid-19. There there some moments that Tom and I, Bret Yunker, our CFO, my son, Anthony, and others all huddled up. Our first concern was, were we going to be able to do this with our bankers? And that was a firm ‘yes.’ They stood behind us 100 percent. Then we also asked ourselves, ‘Is this the right thing to do, in these unchartered times that we’re living in, as we’re getting better as a world, and as an America, healthwise?’ But it was.” For Reeg, it was simple mathematics. “We were so overwhelmed with all the operating decisions you had to make at that time, ultimately shutting our properties, furloughing employees, developing health and safety protocols with experts in the field,” he says. “You’re kind of drinking from a firehose as that’s going on. Once everything was closed, and you start to calm down a bit, you do the underwriting again. “Our choices at that point were to pursue the transaction as we had laid it out, or somehow break the transaction and risk that we’d be paying over $1 billion in break-up fees between Caesars and VICI. So, it becomes a math decision. What’s the better outcome? Are we better off on the path that we were headed down, or are we better off on a stand-alone basis, with potentially $1 billion out the door, in some form or fashion, and/or some protracted litigation related to that breakup? It was a very easy and relatively quick decision.”

piness, I can’t imagine the calls that you’re getting. If you’re interested in examining a transaction, we fix broken operating entities, and we would be willing to take a look.’” Kornstein took the idea to the Caesars board, where it was roundly rejected. Carano believes the meeting with then-CEO Mark Frissora was destined to fail. “So we all went on with our lives,” says Reeg. Late in 2018, Reeg had dinner with Carl Icahn after closing the Tropicana deal. He mentioned the Caesars situation, “if you ever want to get back into gaming.” “It was a passing topic of discussion, and a very long dinner,” says Reeg, who thought nothing of it. “Toward the end of ’18, there were press reports about him accumulating a stake in Caesars,” he explains. “As is typical, Carl doesn’t tell you about his investment positions. A couple of months later, I got a call from him, and he said, ‘I want to move this transaction forward, and if you’re still interested, I’d like you as a manager.’ That was in late January 2019. Those discussions started by the beginning of March, and by June, we had a transaction.” For Carano, the deal made sense. “I’ve always been a great fan of Phil Satre and what he and his team built at Harrah’s and then Caesars. But in 2018, long after Phil was gone, two previous CEOs had a hard time getting through the crash. They came out of it with a lot of debt. It wasn’t the same company that Phil built, and the company that we Harrah’s Resort Atlantic City purchased is going to look a lot different, a lot more closely modeled on what Phil has done over the years.”

Caesars Structure When word got out that Eldorado was the front-runner to acquire Caesars, it made no sense to some observers. The company wasn’t large enough to swallow Caesars. Yes, it had been successful in its previous acquisitions, but those were much smaller, more manageable deals. Caesars is a mighty company, with lots of traditional structures. For Eldorado to perform its magic, there had to be massive changes. Reeg set to work outlining all the cost savings and synergies that would be achieved by Eldorado to make it a worthwhile deal for Caesars shareholders. He targeted $400 million to $500 million in savings, a number that was clearly attainable. On June 24, 2019, the $17.3 billion deal closed, and due diligence began 22

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

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“We’d rather have you make a decision and it be wrong than not make a decision at all, and just delay it. That strategy was welcomed with open arms by our property leaders.” —Gary Carano, Chairman, Caesars Entertainment

Harrah’s Cherokee, North Carolina

Horseshoe Baltimore

Reeg’s estimates of synergies and cost savings were actually helped by Covid-19. “At the time of our financing, we had $400 million of cost synergy in our original target, which was kind of our typical playbook, of blocking and tackling at the corporate and property level. But now, we see another $400 million of opportunity due to a structural shift in the way business is done in the space.” He attributes some of those cost savings to the reduced need for employees when operating at 50 percent capacity, the restructuring of buffets, which traditionally lose $4 million to $5 million a year (multiplied by 40 or more properties), and other issues related to health and safety. As a corporation, Caesars had become known for a bloated C-suite—lots of development, government affairs, marketing and public relations execs responsible for various aspects of the business. With Eldorado in charge, that’s over. “Our culture is to empower the property’s general managers and their management teams to make their decisions themselves, on the ground, instead of having the decision made in Las Vegas, without even consulting the property,” says Carano. “We’ll have a much, much smaller corporate team in Nevada, empower the properties, and make sure they have the right manpower at the properties to make those decisions.” Carano says that doesn’t mean there won’t be oversight—company President Anthony Carano is in charge of that—but it gives them a responsibility that was not part of recent Caesars regimes. “We’d rather have you make a decision and it be wrong than not make a decision at all, and just delay it,” says Carano. “That strategy was welcomed with open arms by our property leaders.” Like all other acquisitions, the corporate structure is going to be decentralized, Reeg adds. “That’s been our DNA all along,” he insists. “Our view is, we make our 24

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

money at the local level, from the customers in these properties. The more people you put between the front-line people that deal with them every day and the person making the actual decisions, the poorer the outcome. “Caesars was the gold standard for a very long time in this business, management chief among them. And there’s talent at the operating level in Caesars that’s been in this organization for 10, 15, 20 years, that has been handcuffed by the way decisions were made. We’re really just trying to take the handcuffs off and let talented operators do what they do best.” The sales of individual properties started long before the deal was finalized to avoid SEC violations and regulatory oversight. While not a requirement of the approval of Nevada regulators, Reeg has committed to selling one of the Caesars properties on the Las Vegas Strip. “We were hopeful that would be in the first 12 months post-closing,” he says. “Given the environment with the virus, that might be the first 12 to 18 months. But really, that’s a decision based on the fact we don’t need to have 24,000 rooms in a single market to fill every night. “If I can tighten that yield management by adding Eldorado customers to the database, then tighten it further by reducing the amount of rooms I have to fill, and have a billion and a half or $2 billion available to me to pay down debt, I think that’s the right answer for our stakeholders.” The sales of other properties didn’t have the financial impact of a Strip sale. Bally’s Atlantic City to Twin River garnered just $25 million, and the sale of Louisiana Downs near Shreveport, only $22 million. Three racetrack sales in Indiana won’t bring much, either. “We’re not married to our size or any particular asset,” says Reeg. “We have significant plans to drive value through the existing portfolio. We have a handful of divestitures that we’ve scheduled.”

Rewarding Results Caesars Rewards (formerly Total Rewards) is the epitome of loyalty programs in the gaming industry. Introduced under Phil Satre and refined under Gary Loveman, Caesars Rewards is often the tool that drives visits from customers who want to be eligible for an annual vacation to Las Vegas or a stop at any of the Caesars casinos on other trips. Reeg believes Caesars Rewards will only get better under the new regime. “You’ve seen the power of Caesars Rewards in the relative operat-

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High Roller at the Linq, Las Vegas

ing performance on the Strip over the last three years or so,” Reeg explains. “Caesars did the best in terms of driving hotel profitability and casino profitability when times were good, and they’re doing it again now when we’re in harder times in Vegas, where you’re seeing us operate at something like 1.5 to 2 times the occupancy of our peers. It’s because of that Caesars Rewards database. But I also look to what can we do with that database as we move forward. A significant percentage of the adults in the United States are a part of this system. And these people are spenders. They have disposable income that they choose to spend at Caesars because of the rewards program.” Carano says his company again stepped into a situation where money had already been invested with Caesars Rewards. “Prior to our deal, Caesars had spent a lot of money of the last four or five years on technology,” he says. “That’s going to make it easier to integrate the two loyalty programs together. I expect it will be done in less than one year.” Reeg says Caesars Rewards drives business to other casinos in the enterprise, so it’s not just a visit to Las Vegas. “The key piece of Caesars Rewards is the cross-market play that’s generated,” he says. “That was a striking factor as we did our due diligence and went to the properties. Each of them would tell us, ‘Here’s how much cross-market play is generated in the system.’ Having owned, operated and purchased a number of properties from other operators, there’s nobody in the business that develops and generates the cross-market play that Caesars does. If I can utilize the brand, that program, in a market where I’m not a competitor—there are a lot of tribal markets, there are markets in the Northeast, where we’re not a player—I think that could be an opportunity going forward.” Another brand Caesars owns is the World Series of Poker, an event held annually at the Rio in Las Vegas. It’s no longer owned by Caesars, but is still managed by the company under a two-year contract. Carano waxes nostalgic about the WSOP, and its connections to Jack Binion and all the great poker players of the past. There’s been some speculation that it would be transferred to the new Caesars Forum convention center, a new 500,000-square-foot facility behind the Linq on the Strip. Carano is undecided. “Does it feel right at the Forum?” he asks. “Or does it go into one of the properties on the Strip? Hopefully it will be able to stay right at the Rio, where they’ve been doing a great job all these years.”

Sporting Options The legalization of sports betting two years ago was a major moment for a company like Caesars. The sportsbook at Caesars Palace is one of the iconic shrines to sports betting in Las Vegas. As Eldorado, a deal was made with William Hill US to run all Eldorado sportsbooks in legal sports betting jurisdictions. But with the Caesars purchase, things have changed, according to Reeg. “As Caesars, we should look for a partner that has aspirations to build a national brand, and that will let us participate in that upside,” he says. “We had an existing partnership with William Hill and (CEO) Joe Asher that had gone quite well for us. We talked to a number of potential partners, but it was very clear to us, both economically and operationally, that William Hill was our best option, 26

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

Harrah’s Biloxi

Harrah’s Ak-Chin, Arizona

and we signed that deal prior to the Caesars deal. Caesars has a very different portfolio in this area, and brands that resonate with the customer. So, the way the deal is structured is that William Hill steps into the Caesars sportsbooks. We keep all our online casino and online poker business, and that’s how we would move forward. I don’t know that that’s optimal for either side. “If you ask them, I’m sure they’d tell you we’d like a single-wallet solution that solves for all of those areas, and they don’t have a path to that in the current partnership. We would tell you the Caesars brands and the sports partnerships that they bring are much more fulsome and will drive much more value than Eldorado brought to the table on its own. So we’re looking for a path that’s in the best interest of both the partners and the stakeholders on all sides.” During the Covid lockdown, iGaming revenues in New Jersey and other legal states (Pennsylvania, Delaware and Nevada) soared. States that lack legal iGaming took notice and most observers, including Reeg, believe it will open a path to iGaming in many more states. “There are some compelling stories out there,” says Reeg. “It’s an extremely exciting and large opportunity for the space. It’s the biggest—I said this on our earnings call—this is the biggest growth opportunity for gaming since riverboats were legalized in the ’90s.” Carano acknowledges that Caesars hasn’t been one of the leaders in iGaming, but says this will change. While he wouldn’t reveal the plans his executives are working on, he said it will be significant. “We’ve got some exciting potential things for online gaming coming in the future, taking advantage of all our properties nationwide. We just wanted to do it right. We haven’t been a big player in it, but I think you’ll be surprised in the next year, that we’ll be able to make an announcement that will definitely shock the gaming industry.”

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NIGC, Then & Now More than 30 years after the establishment of the National Indian Gaming Commission, past commissioners look back on times of conflict, accommodation and cooperation By Marjorie Preston

he unequivocal success of tribal gaming over the past halfcentury is a testament to the industry and resourcefulness of Indian tribes across the U.S., as well as to the broadbased appeal of gaming. Starting in the 1970s, tribes used gaming to create and build wealth, asserting their sovereign right to do so free of oversight by the U.S. government. That right was affirmed by the 1987 U.S. Supreme Court Cabazon decision. But the federal government was unwilling or unable to take a hands-off approach; states too, along with non-Indian gaming interests, pressured Congress to bring additional regulatory control to bear over the growing industry. In 1988—by then, tribal gaming was a multimillion-dollar enterprise—Congress established the Indian Gaming Regulatory Act (IGRA) and the National Indian Gaming Commission (NIGC), an agency in the Department of the Interior that would administer the act in concert with state and tribal regulatory agencies. On its face, the mission of the NIGC is clearly supportive: in addition to the regulatory function, its stated goals based on IGRA are to provide training and technical assistance to tribal regulators, vet gaming ordinances and management agreements, investigate people and businesses that want to manage or invest in Indian gaming and keep out bad actors, and so on. But this alliance of gaming tribes, tribal gaming commissions and the NIGC has sometimes been an uneasy one. In the early years, “We got a lot of opposition from tribes,” says Jana McKeag, of the Cherokee Nation of Oklahoma, who served as commissioner from April 1991 to December 1995. “People would yell at us—what were we doing trying to impose this regulatory structure over sovereign governments? “They were very upset, also, that states would have some say in their gaming operations through the whole compact system. It was very new in Indian Country, new to the states, new to the Interior Department. At the time, established tribes were still questioning the constitutionality of the IGRA.” In 1991, two tribes sued to prevent the implementation of IGRA, contending that it violated their right to self-determination. Though IGRA was deemed constitutional, many disagreed then—and continue to disagree now—about its application, and the extent of authority that should be wielded by NIGC. 28

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

Writing the Manual “The NIGC was never very favored by the tribes, who essentially felt that regulation fell to their own commissions,” says George Skibine, of the Osage Nation of Oklahoma, who was acting commission chairman from October 2009 to June 2010. “When NIGC comes in, it’s like Big Brother looking over your “We got a lot of shoulder, overlording something opposition from that’s within the tribe’s jurisdiction. They feel it’s an attack on tribes. People would their sovereignty.” yell at us—what were That perception can change we doing, trying to depending who occupies the chairman’s seat. Philip N. impose this regulaHogen, for example, an Oglala tory structure over Sioux from South Dakota and sovereign commission chairman from December 2002 to October 2009, governments?” was seen as more of an enforcer, —Jana McKeag, NIGC and “drew the ire of the all Commissioner, April 1991tribes,” says Skibine. Tracie M. December 1995 Stevens, his successor (June 2010 to August 2013), “took a diametrically opposed view, abandoning enforcement efforts and focusing on education.” “We had to make it up as we went along; we had no rule book,” Hogen recalls. “We developed the first training program for regulators, opened field offices, hired field staff—we were all in growth mode. I don’t say we got everything done, but the job of the chairman is to keep Congress off the back of tribal gaming and make sure they know it’s squeaky clean.” In time, he says, “We had a good rule book and played by that rule book.” Hogen says a hallmark of his tenure was the prevention of “gamesmanship”—non-tribal entities ingratiating themselves with tribal interests to fur-

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“We had to make it up as we went along; we had no rule book.” —Philip N. Hogen, NIGC Chairman, December 2002-October 2009

ther their own interests—and ensuring that as tribes grew and allied themselves with mammoth commercial operators, such as Harrah’s or Station, the tribes would “get a fair shake” and maintain the upper hand in their own operations.

Leaving a Legacy Former commission chairman Jonadev Chaudhuri, who was appointed during the Obama years and served from October 2013 to May 2019, says IGRA gives commission leaders broad discretion to run the agency as they see fit—allowing them to put a personal stamp on the commission, and leave a distinct legacy. “For some, that’s led to heavy emphasis on enforcement, for others, heavy em“The NIGC was phasis on training,” says seen as an Chaudhuri, of the Muskogee intrusion upon (Creek) Nation. “I like to tribal sovereignty— think that my team focused it was going to ‘peek on all of the above, recognizunder the tent’ every ing that we had to help mainso often in regards tain a secure industry and at to audits and other the same time empower our things.” partners, the front-line opera—Jason Giles, Executive tors and tribal regulators. It Director, National Indian wasn’t an either/or scenario.” Gaming Association His administration “brought some of the strictest and hardest-hitting enforcement actions in the history of the NIGC,” Chaudhuri notes, “but also supported tribal regulatory bodies through training and technical assistance, building on the work of previous administrations. We didn’t measure our success by the number of enforcement actions, but by the overall health of the industry.” While NIGC does not play an explicit part in tribal-state disputes, such as the compact renewal issue that recently caused a showdown between Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt and gaming tribes in that state, the commissioner has a leadership role nonetheless, he says. “When states and tribes were at loggerheads, I looked to the letter of

the law when deciding the proper approach, and also to the legal responsibility set forth in our statute, which is to promote and support self-sufficient tribal economic development and strong tribal government. “The plain letter of IGRA is black and white in terms of Class III gaming requiring a compact, but in periods of dispute, it’s important to have lodestar guiding principles to inform agency actions. With one dispute in New Mexico, we worked with our federal partners to engage in a very shortterm period of non-enforcement while the litigation played out, during which time any revenue sharing payments were put in escrow. “I cannot say the settlement was to everybody’s liking, but we issued a letter staying our hand pending litigation, and the U.S. attorney’s office did the same. “In moments of dispute, there’s an opportunity to lead through facilitation of dialogue or by taking a calm and measured approach.”

Empty Seats According to Jason Giles, executive director of the National Indian Gaming Association (NIGA) and a member of the Muskogee (Creek) Nation, tribes rightly view the NIGC’s role as secondary to that of tribal regulators. “When NIGC was created, it was seen as an intrusion upon tribal sovereignty—the NIGC was going to ‘peek under the tent’ every so often in regards to audits and other things. But we’ve tried to take a cooperative, teamwork approach with the NIGC, and solve things together rather than going out and issuing fines for every minor infraction. “The NIGC, unfortunately, has been more inclined to want DOJ prosecutors (in commission roles) than someone who’s managed a gaming floor. Even with something as mundane as minimum internal control standards, if you take a prosecutorial approach to enforcement, you’ll find a snake behind every rock. But if you’ve worked in the gambling industry, you might take a different approach, one rooted in the customer base and what you’re providing as a service.” Giles is also concerned that only two of the three commission seats are currently filled, with Sequoyah Simermeyer, nominated by President Donald Trump and confirmed in November 2019 in the top role, and Kathryn Isom-Clause, appointed during the Obama administration, as commission vice-chair. “In Indian Country, we’re trying to come up with a system to get quality tribal gaming officials to fill those slots—we have all these great gaming commissioners and professionals who could serve on the NIGC, but we need cooperation from Congress and the (president) on those appointments,” Giles says. Skibine agrees that “neither Democrats nor Republicans have done a good job in making sure there are three members, and that’s unfortunate.” It’s unusual, he adds, that the current chairman has no apparent political afOCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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filiation. “He’s independent, not affiliated with Republicans or Democrats, and it’s very unusual for the administration to appoint a chairman who’s not a party member.” That doesn’t mean the commission itself is independent, Skibine observes. “To me, the biggest problem from a governmental standpoint is the fact that it’s unclear whether the NIGC is an independent commission or subject to the supervision of the Secretary of the Interior. In my experience, Interior oversight of NIGC can inject political issues on the chairman and make him less independent. NIGC should be like other commissions—truly independent, without oversight of the Interior Department. But that’s not the way it is right now.”

plate in anticipating what tribes needed to consider as they tried to reopen.” Giles characterizes the NIGC’s Covid guidance as “taking what the CDC said and putting it out there, and also “In moments of encouraging tribes to work with dispute, there is an their state and local health offiopportunity to lead cials. I think tribes uniformly through facilitation would agree that their response of dialogue or by during this has been fine, not taking a calm and The Road Ahead overbearing, and more about comeasured approach.” Today, of course, the industry stands at a crossroads due to the impact of operation and trying to help —Jonadev Chaudhuri, NIGC Covid-19, which caused the temporary closure of some 500 Indian gaming everybody through this panChairman, October 2013-May halls operated by more than 240 tribes in 29 states, and has jeopardized hundemic.” 2019 dreds of thousands of jobs, as well as tribal economies and the well-being of As always, notes Chaudhuri, tribal communities. According to a report in the Wisconsin State Journal, the current crisis is a time for leadtribes who collectively produced $35 billion in gaming revenues last year could ership, separate from statutory aulose $22.4 billion this year due to the shutdowns. thority, with the NIGC “helping to facilitate dialogue among tribal nations and Does the NIGC have a role to play in the current health and economic crisupporting that dialogue through technical assistance and sharing best pracsis, and in the longed-for recovery? tices.” “No doubt about it,” says Giles, adding that the NIGC is mandated by At the very least, tribes hope the commission, which draws its annual statute to ensure the health, safety and welfare of tribal casinos. budget from gaming revenues, recalculates that budget in light of the coron“Before, when you thought about health, safety and welfare in the gamavirus. “Revenues are going to be way down,” Giles warns. “We’re looking for bling industry, you might think about preventing a bar fight on your property. them to adjust the budget appropriately, and not base their budget for 2021 on But this is a pandemic, and what expertise does the NIGC have with regard to 2019 fees.” Chairman Simermeyer was unavailable to comment for this article, but according to Giles, “We enjoyed working with former Chairman “NIGC should be like other Chaudhuri’s administration, and certainly Chaircommissions——truly man Simermeyer has given us the same open-door independent, without oversight policy and ability to engage with the commission.” of the Interior Department. But “I was very glad when he was appointed,” says that’s not the way it is right now.” McKeag of Simermeyer, a member of the Coharie —George Skibine, NIGC Acting Chairman, Tribe of North Carolina, a former associate comOctober 2009-June 2010 missioner who also has worked in various capacities at the Bureau of Indian Affairs. “He had served as a epidemiology?” commissioner, and he hit the ground running.” Earlier this year, the NIGC launched a series of Covid-19 “Guidance OutBy the time IGRA and NIGC were set forth in 1988, tribal gaming had reach” calls hosted by Simermeyer and Isom-Clause, consulting with the leadbeen an active, going concern for well over a decade, starting with paper bingo ers of regional tribal associations on possible solutions, says McKeag. on reservations, and rapidly growing into a multimillion-dollar and then a “On one of the calls, I could feel Sequoyah’s and Kathryn’s hearts breakmultibillion-dollar industry. Tribes are even going global—witness Inspire, a ing, as tribes asked for help with cleaning supplies and medicines, these very Mohegan Gaming & Entertainment development in South Korea, and a resort basic needs. The job now is kind of keeping the ship operating. One person on project approved for the Hard Rock-Seminole organization in Athens, Greece. the call was saying that people are out there, trying to take advantage of tribes, The path ahead may be filled with obstacles, but Chaudhuri expresses measselling them snake-oil solutions and devices.” ured optimism about the ability of tribes to pivot as necessary, and as in the Interestingly, she adds—reflecting the historic tensions between tribes and past, to determine their own fortunes. the NIGC—a tribal representative on the call asked if the NIGC guidelines “I always recognized,” he says, “that Indian gaming was a success story not were suggestions or directives, and if they would be subject to fines for nonbecause of federal law, but because of the innovation and regulation of the pricompliance. “But it was just guidelines. I think the NIGC stepped up to the mary operators of Indian gaming—and that is tribal nations.” 30

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

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The world’s major slot suppliers soldier on with a wealth of new product innovations in a year without precedent

GLOBAL GAMES 2020

All articles written by Frank Legato, unless otherwise indicated.

he year 2020 is without precedent, in this or any other industry. When the casino industry shut down in March for the first time in its long history due to the Covid-19 pandemic, questions abounded about whether and when the major suppliers of slot machines would recover. When the Global Gaming Expo, slated for this month, was canceled, questions arose as to when the industry’s operators would even be ready to consider buying new games. The cancellation of G2E also presented a question concerning this, the annual “Global Games” edition of Global Gaming Business. The Global Games feature, as well as its predecessor in another magazine going back to the early 1990s, was conceived to give operators attending G2E (and the World Gaming Congress before it) a guide to all the new games to be exhibited at the annual trade show. With no show, would a new product showcase be feasible? After discussions with those suppliers—who also happen to be our top advertisers—it became obvious, particularly as casinos began to reopen this summer, that the supply side of the gaming industry had done all in its power to survive amid the pandemic, and in fact, had continued research and development efforts while many aspects of their businesses remained idle. That’s why we decided to continue to highlight all the innovations coming out of the sector. Last month, we published Progressive Products Preview (P3), which replaces the former G2E Preview’s showcase of new technology outside of the slot sector, in the absence of a physical trade show to preview. And it is why we decided to proceed with this, the 19th edition of the Global Games feature highlighting the year’s innovations from the major slot manufacturers of the industry. This summer, we traveled to the headquarters of slot manufacturers as in past years, and were shown technology innovations that you will see reported on exclusively in the following pages. The story was the same for each and every slot manufacturer as far as working through the Covid-19 crisis. All of the game design teams quickly shifted to remote development, and as a result, the supply sector’s annual outpouring of innovation barely missed a beat. Many of the suppliers actually increased their annual output of games, using the industry’s forced pause for increased R&D in new product areas. As a result, you will find the usual amazing collection of innovation in new cabinets, new game styles, fun game me32

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

chanics this year as any other year. One big difference is that we have included a wealth of games that are already on casinos floors, since many of them were officially released early in 2020, only to be idled when the operators were forced to shut down. The other big differences you’ll find this year in the Global Games feature are reports on innovation and manufacturer progress that has been accelerated because of the pandemic. That means internet gaming, which thrived when the brick-and-mortar casinos were closed. Major manufacturers accelerated efforts this year to port as much of their content to iGaming sites as possible, some developing their own remote game servers to avoid having to partner with third-party aggregators. That also means systems technology, particularly technology that support contactless, cashless wagering. As casinos sought to return safely to operations, the demand for technology that would allow contactless, cashless gaming at slots and tables grew exponentially. Finally, several manufacturers steered development efforts to technology that would promote social distancing, sanitization of surfaces and other necessities of post-Covid operations. Merchandising efforts are steered to pod configurations for gaming machines, which achieves social distancing without any machines being disabled. Where such pods are not possible, manufacturers have devised system technology that automatically disables surrounding machines when a player cards in, and alerts cleaning teams to sanitize surfaces when play stops. Other manufacturers have produced new inventions to promote player safety, from removable Plexiglas barriers to UV light technology that continuously disinfects and sanitizes game surfaces. One other conclusion can be drawn from our conversations with the supply sector this year: There is a universal optimism that casinos will continue to renew their floors with new games in the coming years, along with a universal commitment from the manufacturers to help their operator partners to achieve that—from increased lease and participation deals to suspension of fees and special financing arrangements. You will find those cabinets, new games and new systems highlighted on the following pages. Many of the manufacturers highlighted are also submitting video demonstrations of their products, to which you will find links in the online version of this magazine. Welcome to Global Games 2020, as we relate one more thought repeated by suppliers and operator alike: We’re all in this together.

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

Full Steam Ahead AGS continues R&D to advance products on all fronts—slots, tables and interactive gaming

ike many suppliers, AGS was on a roll before the Covid19 crisis hit, with products like the Orion Curve and Orion Rise cabinets providing new formats for both established and new games, and the Starwall video wall, an amazing backdrop that creates an immersive feel for premium titles on AGS’ Orion Portrait platform, just entering the market to rave reviews. Despite shutdowns, furloughs and that temporary halt in sales every supplier endured, AGS has managed to keep that momentum going. “We realized that with the disruption to business, we had a choice to make,” says AGS Executive Vice President Matt Reback. “While we had to furlough team members and go through the processes that the entire supplier market had to experience, we did continue to make investments in our R&D team, knowing we wanted to come out on the other side of the pandemic in a position of strength. “Similarly, AGS has always stood out in our industry because of our renowned corporate culture, and we’ve worked very hard throughout the pandemic to keep that intact.” “We’ve been working with the engineers full-throttle, developing our technology,” adds Jamie Abrahamson, senior director of table game content for AGS. “We have some exciting submissions going into the lab, and we really have not had any disruption in our development queue.” That means those new products that were on a roll before the crisis will continue to roll out, in all three of the AGS product divisions—slot products, where the company continues to build up the game libraries for all its diverse cabinet styles; table games, where a new progressive product stands to inject new life into the pit; and AGS Interactive, which continues to spread AGS content not only in New Jersey, Pennsylvania and developing U.S. jurisdictions, but around the world through its aggregation platform and key partnerships with both operators and third-party providers. It also means 2020 will see the same kind of volume of new innovations and game styles as any given year. “We have studios around the world—in Sydney, Reno, Austin and Atlanta Metro—and those studios have all been developing product and continuing with hardware and content innovation through the pandemic,” says Reback.

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

According to Steve Walther, senior director of slot products for AGS, the top goal of that development on the slot side has been to increase the footprint of the Orion family of cabinets, and to increase the game libraries of the two newest Orion cabinets—the Orion Rise, which features a 55-inch 4K LCD flat-screen monitor atop a standard dual-screen base, and the premium Orion Curve, which highlights 4K graphics on a 49-inch curved portrait-style monitor. And then there’s the Starwall, the giant, freestanding video backdrop display for Orion Portrait cabinets that frames three or six Orion games in a stunning 4K video display that mimics the theme, colors and features of the game content on the Orion Portrait games. Measuring 8.5 feet tall by 5 feet deep, the merchandising display can frame a three-pack along a wall or a freestanding two-sided six-pack bank of games. The Orion Rise, launched last year, transforms the basic dual-screen Orion cabinet into a tower-style game, and the Orion Curve cabinet, which debuted early this year, is “a premium product, featuring gamethemed wedges and a digital LED circular topper with packaging that can be either in a four-pod or five-pod configuration,” says Walther.

Orion Matures Introduction of the Orion Rise and Orion Curve filled out the form factors AGS needs to host all styles of slot games, from the core dual-screen video slot to the larger-format variety. AGS has built a library of games in which each title is designed to exploit the strongest capabilities of a particular cabinet. AGS also has been very successful in bringing its most popular titles into new formats, and that includes the inaugural games fronting the Starwall display. “The Starwall is our first major foray into a total premium package, start to finish,” says Walther. “Before the pandemic, it was performing extremely well, and after casinos have started to reopen, it continues to per-

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“You’ll see these games banked according to the various themes and theme families, and it really creates an entertaining and immersive experience for people playing the games on the Starwall.” —Steve Walther, Senior Director of Slot Products, AGS

form extraordinarily well.” The inaugural suite of games for Starwall began with new versions of player favorites presented on the Orion Portrait cabinet— Golden Wins Deluxe and Jade Wins Deluxe. That will soon be followed by Piggy Wins and Grand Ox Wins, which are evolutions of Golden Wins Deluxe and Jade Wins Deluxe, and then some different play styles with Golden Dragon, Phoenix Magic and Lucky Panda. “We definitely have a depth of portfolio on this, and what’s so exciting about this platform for us is that not only does it leverage some great game content, but the attraction the package offers grabs people’s attention as they go by, and keeps their attention as they’re playing the game—because the content on the Starwall matches and mimics the game play,” Walther says. “You’ll see these games banked according to the various themes and theme families, and it really creates an entertaining and immersive experience for people playing the games on the Starwall.” He adds that the attraction definitely draws a crowd. “When you’re seeing them at the casinos where we have them now, they are certainly crowdpleasers, because they stand out. Other suppliers offer LED displays, but this is a cinematic, immersive wall that the games basically fit into, so you feel a part of the package when you play the game.” AGS went with high-performing themes for the first two Starwall games. Golden Wins Deluxe and Jade Wins Deluxe are new versions of the popular AGS titles featuring a wheel bonus that awards progressives, credit prizes, or a unique “coin grab” bonus that capitalizes on the 42-inch screen. Expanding reels are featured in a choose-your-volatility free-spin round. According to Walther, the favored configuration is a six-pack with three of each title per side. The subsequent releases will fit neatly on a three-side panel utilizing the Starwall as well. Walther says Golden Dragon, a multilevel progressive game featuring expanding reels and a jackpot prize wheel, will be released by the end of 2020. During game play, the player collects credit prizes that accumulate at the bottom of the screen, won when the player lands a three-symbol-high dragon. While there is a complete lineup of themes waiting in the wings for Starwall, Walther says there’s no hurry. “We’re still getting such good performance and penetration out of the existing two themes, Golden Wins Deluxe and Jade Wins Deluxe, that we’re really not in a rush to bring out more themes,” he says. “And we continue to grow our floor footprint with the first themes. “We do have a ton of themes in development, and we’re rolling them out when it makes sense to expand the interest in this cabinet, when people are ready to double the number or triple the number of the Starwalls on their floor.”

Rise and Curve The games AGS has designed to fill the libraries of its newest standalone cabinets, the Orion Rise and Orion Curve, are similarly tailored to make the most of what each display has to offer. The Orion Rise is the tallest cabinet AGS has on the market, allowing a standard dual-screen base to host a variety of games that feature grand bonuses played out on the giant 55-inch flat-screen 4K monitor. One of the upcoming themes for the Orion Rise, Da Long Da Fa, is part of the Blazing Wheels game family. Blazing Wheels covers that big screen with dual spinning prize wheels. When the bottom wheel is triggered, the player spins for a credit prize, a progressive jackpot or an “Upgrade” symbol. The latter triggers the top wheel, for larger credit prizes or a progressive. “The top screen is designed to also help to attract a crowd,” Walther says. “Wheel bonus games always draw attention, but the dual wheel spin really attracts players. We anticipate this to build a strong brand following for the Rise when it launches later this year.” In addition to Da Long Da Fa, the Orion Rise library includes Wheel Surge, Dragon’s Jackpots, and the soon-to-be-released Chili Grande. Dragon’s Jackpots is centered around a 3D dragon character in sharp 4K animation. Upgrade symbols on the reels unlock jackpots that are available on each reel during a free-spin round. With the Orion Curve Premium configuration, another AGS player favorite is reprised in Rakin’ Bacon! Deluxe. The popular golden pig character becomes an emperor in the “Golden Blessings” free-spin round, in which a special symbol causes the reel set to expand to as high as seven rows with a 2X multiplier. In “Pirate Plunder,” the pig becomes a pirate for a match-three progressive round. For the Deluxe version, a “Boost” icon has been added to the picking field that increases the valOCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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ues of the four progressives. “This game can be placed in a four-pod or five-pod,” says Walther, “taking up roughly the same amount of space on the gaming floor—not only because space is at a premium, but also because pod configurations allow you to social-distance.” The Curve was launched with Royal Phoenix and Sacred Dragon. Royal Phoenix features a hold-and-spin feature, in which wilds stay in place while the remaining reels spin for bigger wins. Sacred Dragon features expanding wilds and a persistent feature in which the player collects yin yang symbols, which transform into the top-paying dragon symbol. Both games utilize the 49-inch 4K monitor for stunning 3D animation on the main game characters. “The contrast of the artwork and characters is second to none, and the animation on that platform just pops,” Walther says. Also coming soon on the Orion Curve is the Reel Tower series, and its inaugural game Jack’s Riches. The player collects Jack’s “magic beans” in a bonus which grows the “beanstalk” with a new set of reels. Up to four new reels can be revealed and played simultaneously with symbols transforming into the top-paying “golden bean.”

Backing the Legacy The new crop of games this year will not leave out the Orion Portrait, which carries several games—including the original Rakin’ Bacon! and Fu Nan Fu Nu—typically at or near the top of industry performance surveys. There also are several new games on tap for the core dual-screen cabinet. Games launched over the summer on the Orion Portrait, which features a 42-inch touch-screen monitor, include Imperial 88 Tiger Lord and Peacock Beauty, which takes the hold-and-spin bonus to new levels with instant wins and multipliers. “Coins explode out of a jar for the pick’em bonus,” explains Walther. “We keep players engaged by having 36

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

wilds in the pick’em bonus. If you have wilds with the Mini and Major, you get both jackpots. You have the opportunity to win and double whatever your prizes are or win everything in the hold-and-spin feature. It’s really a fun chase.” There are other unique aspects to the hold-and-spin bonus, in which the player accumulates gold coins during a free-spin round, each collected symbol resetting the number of free spins to three. Normally, the player would collect the credits for the accumulated coins when no coins appear for three spins, ending the feature. However, the feature in Imperial 88 includes a “Win Now” symbol that awards all accumulated bonus credits, keeping the coins in place to continue the feature—collecting again at the end of the bonus. “Some of the key brands in the Orion family utilize our Xtreme Jackpots link,” Walther says. “Operators can link all Xtreme Jackpots together for a common prize pool. Rakin’ Bacon! is one of the more popular games on that link. Other extremely strong AGS links are Imperial 88 with Tiger Lord and Peacock Beauty. These are resonating well on our Orion Portrait cabinets, as are the Ultimate Choice Jackpot games Aztec Chief and Red Silk.” Highlights in the dual-screen format include Pele Cash, Cai Shen Cash, 8 Riches and Dynasty Fortunes. Pele Cash and Cai Shen Cash are sister games featuring unique stacking wild symbols. Dynasty Fortunes and 8 Riches offer beautiful Asian imagery and a scatter-based jackpot chase feature.

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event for each table game—an RNG-selected number on the roulette table, any four-card tie in baccarat, a dealer bust totaling 26 in blackjack, and the five community cards in poker derivatives forming a three-of-a-kind or higher. The community-based triggering events create excitement akin to that found at a craps table, since it means an initial award to every player at the table who has made the side bet. When the triggering event occurs, the inner wheel spins to award a Community Prize. The middle wheel then spins to pick one of the player positions, the “Hot Spot,” and the third wheel then spins to award that player the “Hot Spot Prize,” which consists of two progressive jackpots. There is also a smaller “must-hit-by” progressive. “This solution is extremely innovative,” says Abrahamson. “Never before has a product linked the entire table game floor and provided a single jackpot in such a transparent way and in such an engaging way.”

Booming Interactive

Table Tech The big news from the table-game division of AGS this year is Bonus Spin Xtreme, a progressive system that can link all table games in a casino to one progressive jackpot pool. The patented technology places a display with three concentric wheels at each table and solves the challenge of how to offer a single jackpot winner on community-style table games. “We’re very excited to introduce Bonus Spin Xtreme, which is the next generation of our Bonus Spin progressive platform,” says Abrahamson. “With our proprietary technology, we are now able to link all table games, even different games with different spin-triggering events, to the same jackpot pool, providing faster-incrementing jackpots and larger jackpot amounts. “And operators only have to seed one jackpot as opposed to many throughout their various pits, which is a huge benefit and differentiator.” Bonus Spin Xtreme employs a different spin triggering

“Never before has a product linked the entire table game floor and provided a single jackpot in such a transparent way and in such an engaging way.” —Jamie Abrahamson, Senior Director of Table Game Content, AGS

The shutdown of casinos due to the Covid-19 pandemic, of course, did give a boost to one sector of the industry, online gaming. AGS has fully established its interactive division and was ready to fill the gaming void with new online placements of its most popular games. The company entered the social gaming arena with its 2015 acquisition of Rocket Play and acquired the Gameiom aggregation platform in 2018. With its social gaming content in place on the B2C Lucky Play Casino, and content distributed to third-party social casinos via its remote gaming server (RGS), AGS entered the New Jersey iGaming market in 2019, and placed its first content in Pennsylvania this year. In the U.S., sites featuring AGS content include Rush Street Interactive, Caesars, Golden Nugget, Mohegan Sun, Resorts, Harrah’s, 888, WSOP and Kindred in New Jersey. In Pennsylvania, AGS was first featured by Rush Street Interactive and Parx, with several submissions pending at press time, and an entry into Michigan slated for the fourth quarter or first quarter 2021, as soon as the regulator and operator go live. Beyond the U.S., AGS has used its aggregation platform to go live with dozens of top operators around the world, featuring top games like Rakin’ Bacon!, Fu Nan Fu Nu, Longhorn Jackpots, Golden Wins, Capital Gains, Jade Wins and Pharaoh Sun. “Our core strategy is making sure we take our award-winning and industry-leading content online,” says Reback, “and what we’re seeing is that consistently, games that do well in land-based casinos outperform games that are online only. There are a few home-run games that are digital only, but the games that are good land-based titles tend to do well if it’s a good application online. We’re seeing that whether it’s social or real-money gaming.” The online surge adds to a still-growing land-based library AGS has managed to build up with a variety of content that maximizes the company’s innovative cabinetry. Says Reback, “A depth of library, the number of cabinets in the field, and tons of themes to help casinos build their banks with AGS products will help casinos as they reopen during and following the pandemic.”

OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

The New Shape of Ainsworth Ainsworth launches a new curved-screen cabinet, and focuses on the success of QuickSpin and other top brands

ast year, Ainsworth Game Technology was focused on riding the success of what has been one of the highest-earning game groups in the company’s history, the QuickSpin series. Begun in 2017 with the release of Super Hot 7s and Super Charged 7s, QuickSpin games have consistently resided among the top-earning slots in industry surveys. QuickSpin games, which center around a frequent wheel bonus event, have multiplied as their popularity has increased—no less than 10 entries in the series were displayed at the 2019 Global Gaming Expo, including a MultiPlay version of Super Charged 7s that allows players to spin on up to four reel sets. While the wheel game took off, Ainsworth refined its other specialty— traditional-style, high-denomination slot games. The QuickSpin series was augmented with higher-denomination entries to go with the low-volatility penny games in the market. Ainsworth, only a few years removed from establishment of its Las Vegas U.S. headquarters and acquisition of a Class II studio in South Carolina, was definitely on a roll by the time the Covid-19 crisis shut down the industry. But the company’s business plan, at least as far as game development, hasn’t missed a beat. “Before the shutdown, our IT processes were in a good place to do the transition, so we weren’t caught too off guard,” comments Cody Herrick, Ainsworth’s director of game design. “(Microsoft) Teams was in place, and everybody knew how to use the program properly. Once we sat at our desktops at home as opposed to our desktops in the office, not too much changed.” “We work with customers and vendors and media the same way we do internally,” adds Mike Trask, the company’s director of product marketing and strategy. “Like most businesses, not just in gaming but everywhere, we’ve rapidly pivoted to working remotely. I haven’t even seen a hiccup in terms of work flow.”

A-STAR is Born That goes not only for development of games, but of the hardware on which those games reside. One of the most promising of Ainsworth’s developments 38

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

this year is a new cabinet Trask says was “literally on a truck out behind our building” for a trip to San Diego and official launch at the National Indian Gaming Association’s planned Indian Gaming Tradeshow in March when that event was called off due to the Covid-19 pandemic. The cabinet ultimately destined for a softer launch a couple of months later is called the A-STAR Curve, a sleek 13-foot cabinet featuring a 43-inch floating infinity monitor under a 27-inch highdefinition topper, with dynamic LED lighting and a stateof-the-art LCD button deck. It is the first Ainsworth cabinet to launch in North America since 2017. “We’ve focused the bulk of development efforts on the A-STAR Curve,” Trask says. The cabinet was launched with five exclusive games, starting with new versions of the first two hits in the QuickSpin series, Super Charged 7s Classic and Red Hot 7s Classic. “We also launched MegaChoice Superstar on the A-STAR Curve,” says Trask. “It’s a multi-

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rate free-game bonus rounds, the magnifying glass becomes larger to cover more potential wins. Path of Wealth is an Asian-style, 243ways-to-win game featuring colorful highresolution graphics. Above the reels is a horizontally situated board game around which the player travels during free-spin rounds, collecting credits, wild symbols and extra free games. One spot on the board triggers a progressive round, in which players move around a separate board to trigger one of the jackpots. The third-party games augment the familiar hits such as Super Charged 7s Classic, the simple, three-reel offering with multiplying wild symbols and the frequent wheel bonus; and Red Hot 7s Classic, with its multiple “7” combinations and giant progressive bonus wheel. “The legacy games included are really our bread and butter, our topperforming games,” says Trask, “along with a pair of titles developed in partnership with a third-party developer that has extensive experience in the gaming industry. With those five, we have a great mix of product to go to market with this cabinet.”

Building on Success

game package that includes two legacy QuickSpin titles along with three of our top-performing high-denom titles.” Over the summer, those and two other games, Vault of Riches and Path to Wealth, debuted on the A-STAR Curve. Developed in partnership with a prominent third-party developer, the games add a variety of game-play experiences to the tried-and-true Ainsworth hits. Vault of Riches is a five-reel game featuring a bonus vault over reel symbols based on the portraits of presidents and Founding Fathers on cash bills. During the base game, a magnifying glass floats over the reels, randomly landing on spaces to award multipliers, free spins and wild symbols. A vault symbol on the center reel presents the vault door as a wheel bonus—the player spins to potentially unlock the vault to display a progressive picking bonus that awards one of four progressives. In two sepa40

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

New games to come from Ainsworth over the next year will include iterations of the company’s best, including QuickSpin games in both lowvolatility penny titles and high-denomination three-reel games, as well as others employing persistent-style bonuses and classic three-reel, high-denomination, high-volatility entries. “We have a pair of three-reel QuickSpin games that have come out performing phenomenally well in some major casino locations,” Trask says, “and we have a pair of more classic penny-style—I’d call them mid-high volatility titles—that have some pretty engaging play mechanics on them. They look tremendous, they provide a great player experience, and they’re going to draw people to those new cabinets, and hopefully keep them engaged.” Persistent-style bonuses have been launched in games like Super Lit Vegas, a QuickSpin variation that incorporates a seven-spin persistent cycle. During primary game play, the player collects orb symbols. On the seventh spin, all orbs change to wheel symbols, and eight or more orbs trigger the wheel. “As you saw a year ago, we’ve put a heavy focus on our QuickSpin brand,” says Trask, “employing the strongest mechanics, wheel features and persistent features.” Counting Class II titles, he says QuickSpin is now found in more than a dozen iterations.

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“QuickSpin has been our topperforming product for two years running. They routinely show up on Eilers-Fantini top 25 lists. We’re really proud of the work we’ve done with them.”

“QuickSpin has been our toptokens, which can be cashed in for wilds and performing product for two years progressive jackpots. running; they’re the type of game Another new offering is Galaca, being nominated for top slot game —Mike Trask, Director of Product Marketing Ainsworth’s latest venture with video game of the year by Eilers & Krejcik and Strategy, Ainsworth Game Technology giant Bandai Namco Entertainment. Based Gaming,” Trask says. “They rouon the iconic arcade game, the new slot featinely show up on Eilers-Fantini top tures cascading reels and a bonus that collects 25 lists. We’re really proud of the work we’ve done with them. credits for shooting down enemy ships. “Cody and his team developed Super Charged 7s almost three years Finally, the company partnered with comedian George Lopez to create ago, and they just did a tremendous job of putting together a very easy-toGeorge Lopez Neighborhood Tour, a branded game featuring the performer’s understand, simple game that is going to draw gamblers to it because they comedy against a backdrop of a mariachi band, flaming wild symbols and other understand how it works, we give them value for their investment, and it’s attractions. Lopez, who was involved in the development of the slot from the fun to play.” start, provided all the voice-overs for the game, which also—naturally—includes “We’ve been lucky enough with our team here having a lot of experia wheel bonus. ence in how to manage a brand like that,” adds Herrick, “and I think we’ve done a very good job of it through games like Super Lit Vegas, New Horizons which offers a persistent state, to now, a pair of three-reel, high-denom As the industry emerges from the Covid-19 crisis, Ainsworth’s product library games that all play on this tremendously well-received brand.” continues to expand. Growth areas include Class II gaming, historical horse racThe higher-denomination three-reel offering is an area in which ing and the Washington state Tribal Lottery System, or TLS. “We continue to Ainsworth will continue to excel, whether or not a wheel is included, Herlook for means of expansion in Class II gaming and historical horse racing— rick says. “I think we’ve always had a strong showing in high-denom. which we launched with nearly1,000 games a year ago,” says Trask, referring to Some of our mystery progressive games—Thunder Cash, Mustang Money the company’s contract with Churchill Downs, which opened its Derby City II, Eagle Bucks—have been on the market close to 10 years, and have perVLT facility with nearly 1,000 Ainsworth titles. Historical horse racing, or HHR formed to the top of some of the reports the whole time. games, translate data from historical horse races into slot results, displayed with “So, we continued that vein of games, but then looked at what else in all the popular player features. the market in that high-denom quarter product could fill out the whole “We also maintain licenses and have a TLS product in Washington, and a floor. And that’s where the Super Charged 7s Classic and Red Hot 7s few months ago we purchased the assets of MTD, which has a route business Classic came from. It is a core, more traditional stepper-style product that very focused in the keno/poker market,” Trask says. would work on a main floor.” The other element of expansion brought on by the pandemic has been a “Ainsworth’s history of high-denom tends to be in that dollar, $2, $5, move into online gaming in the U.S. In July, Ainsworth announced an agree10-line and 20-line product,” says Trask. “This is a little different. When ment with ROAR Digital LLC, a leading sports betting and gaming group, to you look at a 25-cent, nine-line game, the average bet on that is going to place 20 exclusive Ainsworth games on Party Casino iGaming sites in New Jersey. be more of a mid-denom player.” Ainsworth titles including Rumble Rumble, The Enforcer, Roaring Reels, As the industry begins to re-emerge after the Covid-19 shutdowns, Twice the Money, Eagle Bucks and Thunder Cash are in a period of exclusivity Ainsworth’s strategy is proving its worth. “In the first post-Covid overview across Party Casino sites which also include the BetMGM and Borgata gaming of game performance in the U.S., Ainsworth had 20 percent of the top 25 brands. high-denom titles,” says Trask. “We’re very proud of our high-denom herHerrick says Ainsworth games are now live on four New Jersey sites, as well itage. That said, I also caution people that Super Charged 7s Classic and as Mexico’s real-money Mustang Money Casino, a site operated by the supplier. Red Hot 7s Classic are high-denom games by nature of them being a 25In the end, Ainsworth is continuing to roll, even as the industry slowly crawls cent, 50-cent or dollar game. They will compete in high-denom areas, but out of its pandemic-induced time-out. “Certainly, casinos’ capital is very tight,” there’s plenty of locations on a casino floor where a dollar five-line game is says Trask. “That said, we’ve managed to put out a significant number of Agoing to play phenomenal, whether or not in a traditional dollar section.” STAR cabinets in the last 30 days. We are very creative with how we approach Expect the variety of games using the tried-and-true mechanics to lease deals, finance deals and so forth, and we feel we have one of the best, if not continue. Among those to watch in the coming year will be Lucky Emthe best product, that’s come out in this era, in these summer months. press, a 243-ways game with a persistent-style bonus that Trask calls a “So, we’re hopeful and optimistic about the future, and we continue to have “stone cold lock” to be a new hit. In the primary game, the player collects a variety of different markets that we are gaining success in.” OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

‘Charging Forward’ Aristocrat develops bold new cabinetry and more innovative game mechanics, not missing a beat in R&D

very fall for the past decade, Aristocrat Technologies and its parent company, Aristocrat Leisure Limited of Australia, have added to a virtual highlight reel of innovation. Aristocrat has built up a network of some nine game design studios stretching across the globe, which have coordinated efforts in building a game library that is the envy of the industry. The company wasn’t going to let a little thing like a global pandemic interrupt that. “That’s actually a very important point of pride for Aristocrat in this environment,” says Jon Hanlin, senior vice president, commercial strategy and business analytics for Aristocrat. “We made it a priority to keep our studios operating with full staff; we didn’t furlough any staff from our studios. We knew that coming out of this shutdown, slot performance and having high-performing product was going to be really important to the recovery of the industry. So, it was paramount to us to make sure we continue to deliver product.” As a result, the volume of new games and new cabinets this year has not changed. “We will be charging forward,” Hanlin says. “We believe we’re the industry leader in how much revenue we plow back into our D&D (design and development) function. That hasn’t stopped, and our board is committed to delivering that same investment. We will release roughly the same amount of games this year and every year going forward.”

Cabinet Parade That commitment includes more new cabinets, in an era where hardware plays an integral part in new slot products. In summer of 2019, Aristocrat launched its MarsX core cabinet, featuring dual 27-inch 4K displays, a new platform, a premium virtual button deck and wireless cellphone charging. “The MarsX is what we call a workhorse cabinet,” says Hanlin. “It’s a dual-screen cabinet, but the graphics, and the experience the player can have, are just remarkable.” This year, Aristocrat gives those graphics a new platform with a singlescreen portrait version of the Mars cabinet. The Mars Portrait features all of the advanced capabilities and amenities of the MarsX, only centered on a 42-inch flat-screen portrait monitor. The Mars Portrait is designed to give a premium feel to a workhorse cabinet. “It really fits that portrait cabinet that we’ve seen be very strong in the market, but it’s an affordable cabinet,” Hanlin says. “It’s a cabinet that’s 42

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

“The MarsX is what we call a workhorse cabinet. It’s a dual-screen cabinet, but the graphics, and the experience the player can have, are just remarkable.” —Jon Hanlin, Senior Vice President, Commercial Strategy and Business Analytics, Aristocrat going to be priced for the market. And we know that as the recovery comes and if potential recession were to come, we’re going to be able to provide our customers new product to refresh the floor, but at a price point that’s economical for them, given the environment.” He adds that the Mars Portrait injects a player experience normally found in gaming ops titles into the for-sale side. “Traditionally, the for-sale product has been very myopic,” says Hanlin. “Here is this game, and it has this mechanic, and that’s what it is. As competition gets tighter in that space and as more people enter it, you really need to elevate your game. And part of that is changing players’ expectation of what they get in a forsale or core product.” Hanlin says the cabinet would have been one of Aristocrat’s highlights at this year’s canceled Global Gaming Expo. “The Mars Portrait cabinet really takes what we’ve seen that’s very successful in Mars X and elevates it,” he says. “It might be the best cabinet we’ve ever made, because it can go everywhere, but it’s also premium enough that customers are going to really love it. And we have content on it that’s going to blow people away. Between Buffalo Link in the gaming ops space, Wonder 4 Boost Gold in the for-sale space and others, there are only going to be winners on that cabinet.”

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Aristocrat also is launching a new cabinet for the premium space which is something of a grand follow-up to the imposing Arc Double cabinet that has become a fixture on slot floors with games like Buffalo Grand and Game of Thrones. The Neptune Dual cabinet is a supercharged version of this format, with stacked, curved 49inch monitors replacing the dual 43-inch curved displays of the Arc Double. The screens are angled in a way that the player can look straight up and see the top progressive meter, when seated in the customdesigned chair. Add to this 4K graphics (as opposed to 1080p on the Arc Double), and you have the next big thing in Aristocrat’s premium gaming ops space. “In the premium gaming ops space, it’s really about attracting customers—getting them off the walkway and onto a slot machine,” says Hanlin. “The Arc Double cabinet, which was the first of its kind in that double-portrait cabinet genre, really did that. So, when you build a cabinet with that kind of iconic shape, it’s hard to let it go.” Rather than letting it go, the company improved on it. “We looked at the Neptune and said, we really need to raise our game in this space,” Hanlin says, citing the larger 4K displays and the positioning of the screen—and the adjustable chair. “We really focused on ergonomics with that cabinet, on making customers feel comfortable at a cabinet that’s so big,” Hanlin says. “You don’t want to intimidate people with the cabinet; you want to engross them. And that’s what this cabinet does.”

Combining Legacies Innovative cabinets need innovative content, and Aristocrat is obliging this year. The new Mars Portrait cabinet will be launched with Buffalo Link, a game that draws on the main features of two of Aristocrat’s most iconic brands, Buffalo and Dragon Link—itself a sequel to Lightning Link, the game that pioneered the “Hold & Spin” game mechanic now being featured by most slot manufacturers in one form or another, in the so-called “persistent state” style of game. “We take pride in that; copying is the highest form of flattery,” says Hanlin of the Hold & Spin trend. “We invented the space, and we’re very happy that people are putting games out with those mechanics— but we need to be the market leader in that category.” The best way to introduce a new Dragon Link-style game is to attach it to the

well-known free-spin round and other game features of the Buffalo brand. The game also includes new features like 2X and 3X wild multipliers and a mystery “must-hitby” bonus that awards either the Hold & Spin feature or free games, as well as a four-level jackpot consisting of two static awards and two progressives. “It’s a very important game for us, because it takes our most iconic brand, Buffalo, and our best and most unique mechanic in Hold & Spin, and combines those two,” Hanlin says. Meanwhile, the new behemoth Neptune Dual cabinet will debut with another potential blockbuster from game design legend Joe Kaminkow, Crazy Rich Asians. Based on the 2018 romantic comedy hit from Warner Bros. about a Chinese-American professor and her boyfriend’s rich family in Singapore, the new game takes full advantage of the stacked 49-inch 4K monitors to deliver remarkable quality in footage from the film through primary game play and bonus features that include 2X symbols, a wheel bonus and a pick-em progressive bonus aiming at that big jackpot directly over the player’s head. For Aristocrat, Crazy Rich Asians continues a partnership with Warner Bros. Entertainment Company that has yielded hits including The Big Bang Theory and Mad Max: Fury Road, among others. According to Hanlin, Aristocrat will soon launch other major titles on the Neptune Dual, including a new entry in the Game of Thrones series and several proprietary brands.

Growing Libraries In addition to developing games to take advantage of the new cabinet capabilities, Aristocrat has spent 2020 rolling out content for the current cabinets, including the dual-screen MarsX, launched last year. One of this year’s offerings on the MarsX is a new version of the legendary Cash Express multi-progressive slot. First introduced at ICE London in February and officially launched in August, Cash Express Luxury Line features the familiar four-level progressive supported by three of the company’s highest-earning base games—Buffalo, TimberWolf and 50 Lions. The game is a direct descendant of the revolutionary progressive of the same name which in the early 2000s launched Hyperlink, in which random players were awarded progressive jackpots after the iconic steam locomotive chugged on the screen. The Luxury Line version incorporates the “Cash-on-Reels” feature, in which a “Gold Star” symbol returns instant credit awards or “train jackpot” symbols that correspond to the colors of the Grand, Major, Minor and Mini progressives. The Gold Train symbols awards repeat jackpot wins. “Cash Express was a huge brand for us, and it really set us on the path of gaming ops—that premium lease model,” Hanlin says. “It’s a product that really fits the current environment.” Also on the MarsX is Fu Dai Dragon, which includes a unique Hold & Spin-style progressive jackpot feature using free spins in which the letters OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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spelling out the names of the four jackpots—Mini, Minor, Major and Grand—remain in place while the reels re-spin, until one of the jackpot names is completed to award that prize. The amounts of the two static jackpots and the two progressives scale upward according to the bet. Another standout among the Asian titles on the MarsX is Long Fei Feng Wu, which includes another Hold & Spin feature, in which the player can collect twice on a jackpot if the coin symbols corresponding to a jackpot are accompanied by two or more Phoenix symbols. Another highlight in the dual-screen format is Timber Wolf Gold, a new version of the popular title in which the player collects Timber Wolf symbols, the highest-paying symbol in the pay table, and ultimately replaces lower-paying symbols on the reels for huge wins. The Helix XT cabinet, the portrait cabinet with the curved 4K monitor released in 2018, this year hosts Buffalo Chief, which adds a white buffalo symbol to the iconic brand. The game features “Supercoins,” which trigger the “Buffalo Chief Collection” feature during free games, when every Supercoin triggers a wheel bonus to determine the number of the top-paying white Buffalo Chief symbols that will be added to the reels for the remaining spins—up to a total of 250. Buffalo Chief also features a random “Stampede” feature in which the middle three reels expand up to 10 rows high, creating a reel array with 16,000 ways to win on each spin. Also on the Helix XT is Really Wicked Winnings, another new version of a well-loved theme, this one including an expanding reels feature. Aristocrat’s other curved cabinet, the unique flame55, this year hosts Zorro Wild Ride, a ways-to-win offering that combines expanding reels, persistent wilds, cumula44

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

tive multipliers and progressive jackpots. The game also features Aristocrat’s next new game mechanic, the Wild Ride sticky-wild feature. “It’s a brand new, never-done-before mechanic,” says Hanlin. “It’s a sticky wilds mechanic, which does exist in the world, but it’s implemented in a way that’s completely unique to the industry.” In the feature, Zorro’s alias, Don Diego de La Vega, changes into wilds, wild multipliers or jackpot symbols. Stacked Don Diego symbols provide the opportunity for players to land a screenful of wilds on just one spin. The Edge X cabinet, the immersive game setup that was home to last year’s Game of Thrones: Winter Is Here and Star Trek: The Next Generation, this year features Conan, based on the legendary fictional pulp-magazine and Marvel Comics hero. This year’s burst of innovation extends to the company’s RELM and RELM XL mechanical stepper formats as well. This year, Aristocrat takes its signature Hold & Spin feature to the stepper realm or the first time in Dynasty Link, on the imposing 9foot RELM XL cabinet. (“As the inventor of Hold & Spin, we reserve the right to put it on everything!” says Hanlin.)

From Systems to Digital Aristocrat, like all major manufacturers, has paid a great deal of attention this year to product groups that are suddenly in great demand because of the pandemic—namely, cashless play options on the system side and spreading content online, which increased in importance while the brick-and-mortar business was shut down. For Aristocrat’s Oasis 360 casino management system, cashless wallet features were refined this year and placed into test at Boyd Gaming properties in Las Vegas. “Cashless is a big focus of ours,” says Hanlin. “We have a great partner in our systems business with Boyd Gaming. It’s been a great partnership to drive innovation with us, and they’ve gotten us to a cashless place. We’ll have a cashless wallet, and it will be tied to our key product in the Oasis system. It’s a very important space. “Events like a pandemic can accelerate things that probably need to happen anyway, and cashless is one of those arenas where we as an industry have probably not done a great job in getting where we need to be. This crisis we’ve all dealt with will probably push us to be better at it.”

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While Aristocrat is not currently active in for-money online gaming, the company was one of the early pioneers in social gaming. The Product Madness suite of apps—House of Vegas, Cashman Casino and Lightning Link Casino—has made most of Aristocrat’s casino hits available online. “Our digital business is doing very well, and we’ve seen a significant uptick in daily users, downloads and all other elements,” Hanlin says. Hanlin says he is confident of a bounce-back in sales for suppliers as casinos again ramp up operations. “The term everyone likes to use is ‘pent-up demand’—and it has been great. You’ve heard the earnings calls. A lot of the regional operators have already turned profitable. We’ve seen high coin-in, strong play. “As macroeconomics in the country unfold over the next few months, how much are they going to be willing to invest in their floor? I’m bullish, because from what we’ve seen, slot product is win-

ning the day. It’s a product they can turn on, and it has immediate benefits to them, and it’s helping to drive them to a profitable place quickly. “They’re going to realize that investment in the slot product and slot floor, and new product, will pay for itself.” While industry sectors like online gaming and sports betting are sure to continue to grow after the pandemic ends, Hanlin says for now, Aristocrat will continue to concentrate on that traditional slot product. “We know what we do well,” he says. “We put together high-performing, strong slot content, and we put it on best-in-class, innovative hardware. That’s what we do. And coming out of a pandemic, that’s what people are going to want from us, and want from the industry.”

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

Distinctive Style Aruze continues to distinguish itself with one-of-a-kind game styles, in slots and in a groundbreaking electronic table game

or the past few years, Aruze Gaming America has become known for a distinctive style that has set it apart from other slot manufacturers. At the Global Gaming Expo last year, the company concentrated on pouring new content into its award-winning Muso Triple-27 cabinet, its new Muso Curve-43 Hybrid, which had been launched early in 2019, and the community-style Muso Limited. All that content had begun to roll out to the industry early this year when the Covid-19 virus and subsequent industry shutdowns hit. However, as with many others in the manufacturing sector, Aruze kept on rolling with game development, and now, as the industry continues to reopen, is ready not only to fully roll out the content introduced at last year’s G2E, but to continue with a pipeline of new products in all of its diverse game styles. “Our teams are based in the United States, Tokyo and the Philippines,” says Fred Nunez, Aruze’s global director of product management. “We’ve been pretty fortunate that our game design teams were not all isolated in the U.S. So, even when we had a shutdown in the Philippines, we still had de-

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

sign going on. When we had a shutdown in the U.S., our team was still doing game design from home and sending concepts back over to Tokyo.” This fall, Aruze is presenting its customers with a collection of games previewed last year that have since been refined, along with a few totally new concepts that are, typical for the supplier, out of the box. “There was quite a number of games we displayed at last year’s G2E that were only prototypes, and a number of those games are now ready for the market,” says Nunez. “We have great confidence in our product right now.”

Winning Roll At the head of that list is Roll to Win Craps, the radical hybrid electronic craps table that places electronic wagering stations on a standard table that features a back display formed by a series of LED panels. Technically an electronic table game, it is quite possibly the one ETG that plays most like the live version of a game in the pit. The panels can be programmed to display each point, each prop bet or hard-ways bet, and even promotional messages for the casino itself. Aruze has continued to improve the game since its first install last year at Harrah’s Cherokee in North Carolina. To help players and dealers feel at home playing Roll to Win Craps, a Dealer Tip function has been incorporated. This adds to the “Hot Shooter” side bet that builds on the excitement of a player’s sustained roll. All players placing the bet win jackpots together. “We’ve also added a Power Odds feature,” says Laura Sims, manager of product management and sales promotion for Aruze. “It is a feature the

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On the Muso Triple-27 and Triple-27 Hybrid, Aruze is featuring the Cai Fu Yun series, with three base games—Cai Fu Yun Dragon, Fortune and Lion. Al three feature a giant wheel in the top box that is triggered by three wild symbols.

ers have had no issues adapting to virtual chips. “Virtual chip handling provides multiple additional benefits to both the player and casino,” Nunez says. “With all bets and payouts being automated, the dealer can focus on customer service, stick work and overseeing player actions. Integrated player tracking allows for an accurate rating of players.” Roll to Win Craps was expected to start its Nevada field trial this fall. “That’s pretty exciting,” says Sims. “I can’t wait to see it on the Strip.”

casino can choose to enable. The player doesn’t have to place any additional bet, and randomly, odds are increased on some of the bets.” Aruze has arguably been the only supplier to succeed in rolling out an electronic version of craps, its Shoot to Win Craps ETG still typically Muso Matures packed at Las Vegas Strip properties including the Venetian, where that On the slot side, Aruze this year continues to pour content into the Muso segame, which utilizes an air-powered dice roll, was introduced. ries of cabinets, starting with the distinctive Muso Limited. This commuRoll to Win, though, proceeds like the live game, with players physically nity-style format is home to Hawaiian Fishing, the third game in the rolling the dice. “Existing in a space all its own, Roll to Win Craps generates runaway-hit series of community-style games that started with Paradise Fishentirely new ways for players to experience a game that most thought they ing and continued with Amazon Fishing. already had learned all the secrets to,” Sims says. “We kept the core of what The “Fishing” series became famous for the spectacle of its adjacent 55makes craps great—everyone is in it together, rooting for other players.” inch top monitors, which, in a community bonus round, formed a giant fish Nunez adds that Roll to Win’s ticket-in/ticket-out operation is being “habitat,” allowing players to use a controller that mimics an actual fishing viewed as increasingly valuable at a time when there is an increased aversion rod as players seek to earn credits by snagging fish that swim across the giant to too many touchpoints. Virtual chips minimize display formed by the adjacent monitors. contacts between the players and the dealer—as in This year, Aruze follows up Hawaiian Fishonly one dealer, which is all that is required to oping with a different style of game in Mad erate the game in the pit. Mountain Riches. The giant display in this “The exciting thing about Roll to Win is the game is filled with an animated volcano charactiming,” Nunez says. “We’re starting to get quite a ter that comes to life as each player triggers an number of units out, so the timing of having all individual bonus. these features that have improved the game has During primary game play, the “Mad matched up great. Power Odds and Hot Shooter Mountain” character will spew “Lava Rock are features you really can’t do on a live table, beWilds” that land on individual player screens. cause they’re dynamic. And that’s the biggest adRandomly, the Mad Mountain will erupt in a vantage of Roll to Win: We have a dynamic table lava flow that sends a “Collect Feature” to an that you can change on the fly, and you dispense individual screen, initiating free spins during with a lot of the manual calculations, and modify which the object is to collect emerald symbols, the odds in a manner that would be impossible on each bearing a credit amount. “This mechanic a normal table.” is completely different than others,” says Sims. —Fred Nunez, Global Director of Product Aruze reports that rolls per hour have in“It’s a hold-and-re-spin style, but what’s interManagement, Aruze creased on average by 2.5X, highlighting that play-

“That’s the biggest advantage of Roll to Win: We have a dynamic table that you can change on the fly, and you dispense with a lot of the manual calculations, and modify the odds in a manner that would be impossible on a normal table.”

OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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esting is it can be triggered at any time by the Mad Mountain.” There also is a wheel bonus, initiated by three wheel symbols on the reels. This feature increases in value as the player wagers more—higher wagers add pointers to the wheel for multiple credit awards. During the Collect Feature, if 15 emeralds are collected, the “Deluxe Wheel” is triggered, with increased bonus amounts. Mad Mountain Riches creates a communal feel in an individual game, Sims says. “I know people have been anxiously awaiting the follow-up to Hawaiian Fishing, and it’s a different kind of a follow-up for us, because it definitely has a community feel, but every single bonus and all the game play is individual. It’s a great mix of features.” While Mad Mountain Riches is spreading its footprint across Aruze’s customer base, Nunez says a third game on the Muso Limited, called Wild Force, will be launched by the end of the year. “That game has a metamorphic feature with a wheel, utilizing that 55-inch screen.” On the Muso Curve-43 Hybrid cabinet is Fantastic Dragons, a hold-and-re-spin style of game that gives the player the opportunity to “buy” features. A minimum bet of 50 credits activates a single three-by-five reel set, but 100 credits buys a second reel set, allowing the player to play both sets simultaneously. A 150-credit wager adds orbs that fly onto the screen to activate special bonus features. The orbs also trigger a “collect” feature for credit icons collected in the hold-and-re-spin feature. The graphics package on Fantastic Dragons offers colorful animation in attract mode that stops only for machines being played, but continues to adorn the rest of the bank to attract more players. This year, Aruze adds two games to its Pachincoin series of games on the Muso Curve, launched at G2E 2019 with the game Jackpot Circus. The two new games, Mr. Galaxy and Money Lab, feature unique new takes on the Pachincoin game, which combines the Japanese pachinko game with a pinball game mechanic. The 43-inch screen displays an amusement-style pachinko board. The player launches a ball—it’s all presented in ultra-realistic high-definition video—through a field of prize pegs to rack up winnings. For every play, a random number generator chooses a complete path for the video ball, including the prize pegs it will touch on its way down the 43inch screen. 48

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

All three games in the series include a “Break the Bank” feature, which releases several balls at once, causing a cacophony of prizes as all the balls make their way through the game screen. The bonus trigger is different in the three games. In the space-themed Mr. Galaxy, all awards can be doubled in the feature. Also on the Muso Curve-43 is Ju Cai Duo Duo Duo, a game centered around a panda character that features reels that expand up the 43-inch screen. “This game really builds on a lot of the games we’ve had in the past that use the same sort of functionality,” Sims says. On the Muso Triple-27 and Triple-27 Hybrid, Aruze is featuring the Cai Fu Yun series, with three base games—Cai Fu Yun Dragon, Fortune and Lion. All three feature a giant wheel in the top box that is triggered by three wild symbols. The wheel awards either a win multiplier or free games. Each version of the game offers a different style of free game round. Cai Fu Yun Dragon features frequent retriggers, Cai Fu Yun Fortune features a wheel that spins to add wild symbols to each free spin, and the Lion version takes the multiplier wheel from the base game and raises the values. Nunez says the company is busy filling orders that were made before the shutdown, noting that despite the shutdown losses, customers are honoring those agreements. As for the content, the company is building on the games and play mechanics that have been hits in the past. “We’re building on some of the things that have been successful for us,” says Nunez. “Right now, customers are looking for things they can place pretty safe bets on, and building on known successes is a good way to do that. You get that refreshing new play for the customer, but based on something they know has worked well before.” Meanwhile, Aruze is working with Zynga and other partners to move its games to real-money gaming sites online. Six games are currently available on social sites, and Nunez says company officials hope to be live in both New Jersey and Pennsylvania by the end of the year. Until then, the company will continue to roll out its new casino games. “One good thing about the Covid-19 crisis is that the shift in demand has allowed us to build up a stock of games,” Nunez says. “We’re able to adjust our roadmap according to where we feel the market is going to move, which is a positive for us.”

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

New Day A slot supply veteran aims to transform Canada’s Bluberi Gaming from a small Class II supplier into a major slot manufacturer

hen Andrew Burke agreed to leave his longtime position at gaming supplier AGS to take the helm as CEO of Canada’s Bluberi Gaming, he was joining a company he knew well. AGS, where Burke had spent nine years rising to the position of senior vice president, slot products, had been the exclusive distributor in North America for the Canadian company. “I’ve known Bluberi for a very long time,” says Burke, who became Bluberi’s CEO in January. “They created some of the most iconic and enduring Class II games in the industry—Royal Reels, Cool Catz, Liberty 7’s, Diamond Lotto—and I became familiar with the company through that.” But there was more familiar to Burke with Bluberi than just the games. The supplier, based in Drummondville, Quebec, bears some striking similarities to the AGS that Burke joined in 2010—a small, mainly Class II game supplier serving Native American markets, poised to expand into Class III thanks to the backing of a private equity firm that had acquired the company. “All of those things were positives for me, but I believe the thing Bluberi has always had is a strong development team,” Burke says. “Here, we’ve got a talented team with a history of building great products. Bluberi has that technology and creativity, and also desire. The team in Drummondville has a ton of desire to really take this to the next level.” Burke adds that his years of experience working with an emerging company that grew into an international supplier of slots, table games and interactive systems are an advantage that he brings to Bluberi. He hopes to use the head start he has with the Bluberi team to effect the same kind of growth for the company as it continues to spread its footprint in Class II markets in the U.S., as well as penetrating Class III markets.

Growing the Company While some initial changes are taking place at Bluberi, the creative foundation of the company will remain intact. Corporate headquarters, administration and finance functions, sales and manufacturing are in the process of being moved to Las Vegas. However, the R&D function will remain in Drummondville. 50

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

“There’s a group of about 80 people in the office there,” Burke says. “It’s a team that’s worked together for a really long time. We’ve appointed Benoit Lapolice as senior director of product development. He’s working hand in hand with Steve Houle, our director of product management, and Carl Nadeau, director of game development. They are going to be the central focus of R&D, and I’m really excited about some of the games we’re building up there.” Burke predicts there will eventually be a network of game design studios beyond Drummondville. “We have some great talent in Drummondville, and plans to grow our development team, under their direction. If one day we have multiple design studios, it’s going to be hard to have them all in Drummondville. Likely the Drummondville team will have to find some other hubs to build critical mass, and in due course, they will.” Burke says game development didn’t miss a beat during the recent industry shutdowns. “We pivoted quickly; nobody wasted any time,” he says. “They brought all of their equipment home, our IT department really got on the ball fast, we implemented online collaboration and project management tools, and started having a new rhythm. “We have not wasted this time. It’s important for us to play offense, so we did not furlough R&D. We kept everything going, working on new games that will propel us into 2021.” Bluberi is now expanding into Class III markets in the U.S., but Burke notes that Class II games are still the company’s bread and butter. “We’re making sure we’re using all the licenses we have—we have over 100 gaming licenses,” he says. “There are very few companies that build a product that is solely Class II. And that will differentiate us, because there are so many companies that

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will just take a Class III game, port it into Class II and say there you go. But there’s a real art to building great Class II games, and we have the team and the talent and the experience to build great ones. I want to keep doing that.” According to Burke, while licensing in major commercial gaming jurisdictions like Nevada and New Jersey are long-term goals, the company is currently concentrating on spreading its footprint in more Native American markets, both Class II and Class III. “We’ve got games in California, but only a small footprint in Oklahoma,” Burke says. “We are working on licenses in Arizona and New Mexico. There is a lot of white space in front of us, and we plan to focus our immediate efforts on tribal markets. Our new progressive controller, for instance, was recently approved to Nevada standards, opening a lot of new markets to us.”

Unique Features Some of the games Bluberi is introducing to those markets are unique in many ways. For instance, the company’s legacy game style, presented on a dual screen, includes displaying the complete pay table on the second screen of the machine. “Most games in the market use that space for other features,” notes Houle. “Here, the pay table is up front— easy-read access, right in the line of sight of the player.” Another unique feature is the betting setup. Rather than having a line of wagering buttons for different per-line wagers, there is a fixed bet

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tied to the number of paylines. For a nine-line game, the fixed bet is nine credits: for a 20-line game, 20 credits, and so forth. The buttons on the front panel are used to choose from multiple denominations. Since each denomination shows its own progressive jackpot, the player can easily see which one is the most appealing and decide which one to go after. In Bluberi’s nine-line and 20-line games, all lines pay by combinations running both left to right and right to left. When there is a free game feature, every free spin is a guaranteed winner. “Free spins are a frequent and quick feature— three exciting spins where the player always wins,” says Houle. Current Bluberi games are being produced for both Class II and Class III markets, plus the Washington state TLS video lottery market, where the supplier has a strong presence. This year, Bluberi is streamlining the new content on two cabinet styles: the Novus b49, with a 49-inch portrait monitor; and the 10.5foot b.POD, which features dual 23-inch screens topped with a 55-inch portrait monitor. All new b.POD game content will also be available for the Novus b27 series. Among this year’s standout games is Lunar Celebration. Released this summer, the game is themed around an important Asian holiday, the Lunar New Year. The theme is communicated through glowing colors, firecrackers, red lanterns, dragon masks and other icons of the holiday’s festive atmosphere—enhanced by 4K graphics on the Novus Series b49 cabinet, with its 49-inch flat-screen monitor. The game features free spins with guaranteed wins, a scatter bonus of up to 500 times the denomination, and a bonus wheel, around which a rocket flies until landing on a wheel slice, awarding credits of up to 1,500 times the denomination. Among this year’s other standouts are Lunar Feast and Fortune Feast, both available on either the Novus b27 series or b.POD cabinets. Both games feature intricate, colorful graph-

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

“I want to be the easiest company in the industry to do business with. That deals with how we deal with each other internally, and how we deal with customers externally.” —Andrew Burke, CEO, Bluberi

ics, free spins (three, all winners), a Scatter Bonus featuring a hold-and-re-spin feature, and a multi-level bonus wheel. On the b.POD and Novus b49 cabinets is Cash Roller, a fun game centered around a tophatted cash character. In addition to guaranteed-win free spins, the game features a pick-three bonus that can net credits, or a progressive bonus feature called the “Jackpot Machine.” In this feature, the screen displays giant reels which spin to credit awards or a progressive jackpot. Burke, meanwhile, is working on defining a new corporate culture for the company. “In the first months I’ve been here, we’ve said, what do we want to be? What is a Bluberi game? How do we define that? What does it mean to put out a Bluberi game?” Burke says. “Historically, we’ve been very good at nine-line and five-line products that are a little bit different, and I think our art and animations have always stood out. I think as we shape our identity, you’re going to see that come through.” In addition to developing the company’s culture, Burke says his main goal for 2021 is to provide top service to Bluberi’s customers. “The overarching thing I keep coming back to is that I want to be the easiest company in the industry to do business with,” he says. “That includes how we deal with each other internally, how we deal with customers externally, and setting up the company in 2020 to be ready in 2021 to take advantage of all that. And I feel we’re checking every box and making progress.” And Burke’s five-year plan for Bluberi? “My vision is for Bluberi to be a data-driven, human-run company. Along with being the easiest company to do business with, we want to create high-quality games and foster a unique and engaging culture. If we get all those things right, success will follow.”

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

SMRT Tech Table games get SMRT with Empire’s products and technologies

Las Vegas-based Empire Technological Group (ETG), founded in 2012, initially was known for its innovations in table game technology. Empire has since expanded its product line with a suite of compelling live table games, game themes and technology products that are both operator-tested and player-approved. Empire technologies provide real-time data that allows operators to make decisions based on revenue—not on visual observations or on information that may be many hours old. The company holds multiple patents around these technologies. Empire has moved into the casino space with a range of SMRT Choice Products and table games. Its SMRT Choice category includes five solutions now in the marketplace. They include: • SMRT Trend Board, which captures baccarat data from Empire’s Power Shoe or Dealer Terminal, which can be customized for use on most baccarat games, blackjack and poker derivatives, and can display advertisements and casino promotions; • SMRT Trend Wall, which displays “hot” EGT baccarat SMRT Trend tables at a casino in real time, including at entryways and in hotel rooms, restaurants and table game pits; and, • SMRT Power Shoe, with six- to eight-deck options and which guarantees 100 percent accuracy with no misdeals. “ETG has narrowed its focus to provide the best-in-class technology for table games and video games,” says Executive Director John Glaser. “Our roots are in table games, and we know this is an area largely ignored by technology. “Our SMRT Products provide technology solutions to allow the operators to make better business decisions with data that they can see at any moment. This has proven to be invaluable for several of the largest card room operators in California, and we’re expanding beyond the card rooms; 2021 will see a major implementation of SMRT products both in card rooms and casinos.” Progressive features for poker and baccarat are among the technology developments set for 2021, he adds; those solutions will launch in the first quarter. “Current video game development is focused on creating and deploying exciting high-denomination games at a price that makes it virtually impossible for an operator not to consider,” Glaser continues. “Future game development includes our Paradise Slot brand, a series of video versions of table games unlike any that players or casino operators have ever seen—table game versions that

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

play like real table games. Since we have a table game background, who better to develop and bring to market video version of table games than us?” Empire table games include Golden Frog Baccarat, Pai Gow Royals, Pai Gow Poker Dragon versus Tiger War, Vegas 6+ Hold Em Poker and others. The most popular and successful by far is Golden Frog Baccarat, due to its additional, configurable side bets, which increase the hold percentage for operators. Operators can choose from up to five unique side bets. Such products have allowed Empire to establish itself as a premier supplier of tables games in several of the largest California card rooms. In 2018, Empire entered the video gaming market, and has successfully designed, developed, built and launched a video game cabinet and more than 20 titles. Empire also offers a large portfolio of slot games and state-of-the-art cabinets that can be tailored to any property’s distinct player demographic. Its new Akkadian cabinet—inspired by the ancient Akkadian Empire of Mesopotamia—was first introduced in summer 2019, and now can be found in numerous locations in Southern California and aboard several cruise ships operated by Carnival Cruise Lines. Akkadian’s True High Limit Games include: Jackpot Series, featuring high-hit-frequency progressive jackpots offered in linked and stand-alone configurations. The progressive amount starts at $10,000; five-line, three-reel games with max bet amounts are de-

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signed to keep players playing without exhausting their bankroll. Classic game styling with vibrant colors and sounds and fun, easy-to-understand game and bonus features were created to boost coin-in. Exemplary performers include Jackpot Bonus 7x7x7x, Jackpot Multipliers 4x3x2x1x, Jackpot Tornado and Jackpot Big Wheel, with form, function and content combining for a premier player experience. Jackpot Bonus, a classic game styling that embodies the nostalgia of a classical stepper game, featuring frequent free games with exciting paybacks. This five-credit max bet with a two-level progressive and unique game play features a recognizable bonus feature with free games and retriggers for additional free games (with a potential of up to 510 free games). Jackpot Multipliers, with a bet structure designed for high-limit denominations, and an easy-to-understand base game featuring juicy multiplier pay combinations. This three-reel, five-line game features a great multiplier bonus game designed to bring nostalgia to the high-limit floor. An eight-credit max bet ensures the player will not feel the pinch in their wallet. Jackpot Tornado, featuring the crescendo win feature. This new bonus guarantees that players cannot go below the lowest pay. A three-reel, five-line game with a bonus feature at two credits or more, occurring with a high frequency, encourages player to stay and play longer while generating more handle for the operator. Stay tuned for two more titles in Empire’s Jackpot Series: Jackpot Big

Tradition meets transformation

Wheel and Jackpot Ladder Dice, both coming soon. All titles are available on the new Akkadian platform featuring two dual high-definition 27-inch monitors with the latest, highest-quality hardware available. And all are available for lease or purchase under Empire’s new pricing program. “We will also be launching a second cabinet in 2021 that will be a complement to our current Akkadian cabinet,” says Glaser. “This new cabinet will be a single, J-curve profile screen with LED lighting and the most advance processor in the market. A complete suite of new titles has been developed for this cabinet. We expect to launch this new cabinet in the second quarter of 2021.” Empire currently holds gaming licenses in seven jurisdictions and is in the process of completing its Nevada license. According to President Frank Feng, the company “has an aggressive schedule to pursue over 40 new licenses in 2021. Key jurisdictions such as Louisiana, Iowa, Minnesota, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New Mexico, Oregon and others are our targets, right after we receive our Nevada approval. “Nevada has been in the works for some time now, and if it wasn’t for the pandemic, we believe our approval would have been completed.” The company also has more than 15 new video game titles and a new cabinet slated for launch in 2021. —By Marjorie Preston

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

Staying the Course Everi continues on the blazing path established before the industry shutdown with continued development in all product areas

he product goals for 2020 at Everi Holdings’ slot games division are the same as they were in 2019, and the extraordinary events of this year have not changed that. “What are we looking to accomplish?” asks Dean Ehrlich, executive vice president and games business leader. “We are increasing performance in every product category, maintaining our leadership position in high-denomination mechanical and TournEvent, and maximizing our customers’ ROI across product categories.” Those business factors were soaring forward early this year when the Covid-19 pandemic put a hard pause on the industry, and Everi moved quickly to assure the interruption would not affect its product pipeline. “The one thing that we didn’t want to do was put ourselves in harm’s way by not having enough of a robust development strategy,” says Ehrlich. “The good news is that we have a pretty significant runway, so coming out on the other side of this, we have a significant amount of new themes that have either been recently approved or are just getting there.” While Everi went through the same process of cost-cutting and furloughs as its competitors, the focus remained on product development. “When it came time to bring everybody back (from furlough), we brought them back methodically,” says Everi President and COO Randy Taylor, “and made sure we had our product categories covered. Before that, the team did a great job. Artists and developers were taking their work home to keep the development process going.” Everi’s three studios—the main R&D center in Austin, Texas, and game development studios in Chicago and Reno—have remained open and operational through the entire pandemic period. As a result, there only have been minor tweaks in the product roadmap, with volume down from the normal 80 annual game releases to around 60 for 2020, Ehrlich says. The product roadmap had already been calibrated for efficiency. “If you’re going from 16 themes to 14 themes a year, those are just subtle tweaks (to the roadmap),” Ehrlich says. “When you’re down for a couple of months, you really look at the roadmap and make sure of two things: You’re taking care of customers. And you’re making sure that your product

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

pipeline is where it needs to be.” With casinos having reopened, Everi’s first order of business is to deliver the orders made before the shutdown, says David Lucchese, Everi’s executive vice president of sales, marketing and digital. “There were orders queuing when the shutdown happened,” Lucchese says. “As soon as we brought back key people, we wanted to protect those orders.” Lucchese, in addition to overseeing sales and marketing, has steered Everi’s digital division to the point where it was able to thrive while brickand-mortar casinos were idle. “During this time, on the digital side, we were staffed well to respond to anything that the operators wanted,” he says. “We saw New Jersey pick up the pace on some approvals, and the more titles you get out, the more penetration you get. We already had good traction prior to the shutdown, so it just enhanced our numbers. And the phase that we’re in right now is where we’re taking the great progressive games out of Dean’s library and bringing those over. And that’s a huge breakthrough for us.” The product library on which those interactive games rely continues to

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grow, as Everi strives to increase premium product, in particular, on the new cabinet styles launched over the past few years. Those include the Empire MPX, Everi’s premium cabinet featuring a 43inch flat-screen portrait monitor; the Empire DCX, a premium cabinet featuring dual curved 43-inch landscapestyle LCD monitors; the Empire Arena, a banked product that features Everi’s E5527 cabinet (the numbers referring to a supersized 55-inch top monitor and 27-inch main game screen); and the new Empire Flex, a premium package featuring a 49-inch curved monitor, curved LED light bars and a high-quality sound system. Add to these the unique Renegade 3600, its giant top reels spawning hits like Smokin’ Hot Stuff; premium linked products, and a complete lineup of standard core cabinets, and it’s easy to see how diverse the Everi product library is. This year, Everi aims to add to the games that have been unqualified hits in every format, from Smokin’ Hot Stuff on the Renegade to Shark Tank on the Empire Arena to the Wicked Wheel series on the striking Empire Flex. But first and foremost, the company will seek to exploit what has arguably been its strongest game style, the classic mechanical reel-spinner.

Spinning Success In the Player Classic high-denomination mechanical reel format, the company will seek to add to awards it has won, such as Best New Mechanical Reel Core Game, one of three nods the company got in last year’s Eilers & Krejcik Slot Awards. One standout this year in the reel-spinning genre is Diamond Lock, which takes what has been the stongest recent trend in video, the hold-andre-spin game mechanic, and applies it for the first time to a mechanical three-reel game. According to Ehrlich, the game was still in development last year when first shown to customers, and has created substantial interest ahead of its official launch, which is estimated for the first quarter of 2021. Diamond Lock Ruby and Diamond Lock Sapphire are both three-reel, nine-line mechanical reel-spinners. “These are our hold-and-spin, high-denomination three-reel mechanical games, which had a lot of fanfare at the G2E show last year,” says Ehrlich. “We’re very excited to see what these games are going to do.” On the Skyline version of the Player Classic mechanical reel-spinning cabinet, one of this year’s highlights has been Triple Jackpot Gems, which features three different wild symbols—including the 3X Triple Jackpot symbol, which triples the payoff when one lands in a win, multiplies the pay by nine with two in a win, and pays a progressive for three—the level depends on which of the nine paylines the three wilds land on.

Triple Jackpot is one of the titles in the Triple Double series of threereel mechanical games on the Skyline platform. On the Skyline Revolve platform—that’s the Skyline setup with a top bonus wheel added, home to past hits Casablanca and Penn & Teller— Everi is highlighting Gold Standard, which is a follow-up to the hit Cash Machine and its “what-you-see-iswhat-you-get” reel setup. Gold Standard uses the same numerical reel results as Cash Machine. For instance, 10-5-00 on the three reels returns the top $10,500 jackpot on the dollar game. The Gold Standard game adds a wheel bonus to the Cash Machine play mechanic. The wheel in this game returns credit amounts or one of three progressive jackpots. Everi also is launching new games for its Player Classic 26 mechanical reel cabinet—a traditional three-reel game topped by a 26-inch video screen for bonus features and progressives. Sister games Black Diamond Fortune and Double Fortune are Everi’s first core mechanical reel-spinners to employ the hold-and-re-spin play mechanic.

Flexing Muscles Everi is bringing some of its best content this year to the immersive Empire Flex cabinet. The inaugural offering for the cabinet, first released early this year, is the Wicked Wheel series. Wicked Wheel features a unique progressive picking bonus in which some picks eliminate the lower jackpots from the field. As the player wagers more, multipliers and credit amounts increase. “There was minimal amount of penetration of that cabinet before the lockdown occurred,” says Ehrlich. “So, between Flex, Empire MPX and then the Core HDX, which is our dual-screen cabinet, our strategy is to take our really successful mechanics and port them over into the Flex cabinet. “The amount of bandwidth there is pretty solid. We have a total of nine new Flex games. We don’t need another new theme, quite frankly, until we get into 2021, because we barely launched Wicked Wheel Panda and Wicked Wheel Fire Phoenix (before the shutdown).” Also on tap for the Empire Flex are new versions of Crush, the game that replaces spinning reels with a sculpted Aztec head that the player sends flying down to crush boulders that roll underneath, each “crush” yielding credit awards. “Some themes are able to work within either MPX or Flex,” says Ehrlich, “The presentation of Flex is very nice. The team did a really nice job on higher resolution, premium graphics and CPU processing speed.” OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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“When I go through all the different product categories, this is what excites me. There’s such a lineup, one behind the other, with all these different swim lanes, that I think we’re really set up for some pretty great things.” —Dean Ehrlich, Executive Vice President and Games Business Leader, Everi

Elsewhere in this year’s video lineup are three new base games for The Vault, the interactive hit series launched last year on the Empire Arena premium platform. “The Vault has been by far the best game that we’ve got,” Ehrlich says, “so we’ve had a chance to double down on additional base games, to make sure there’s a long runway for that product.” The Vault, he adds, demonstrates the earning power of the Empire Arena platform. “Empire Arena has been our home run,” Ehrlich says, noting that after inaugural games in The Brady Bunch and Felix the Cat that he says he’s not afraid to call “God awful,” the platform hit with Smokin’ Hot Stuff Wicked Wheel, which he says is still turning in strong performance in the field. A 243-ways-to-win game, the game features primary game multipliers up to 64X, and a picking bonus that guarantees a progressive jackpot. Uncovering a pitchfork in the picking bonus removes the lowest progressive from the field. Shark Week and The Vault would continue the success streak for the Arena platform. The new Vault titles feature mechanics from the original like Vault Respins, a lock-and-re-spin feature; free-spin and picking bonuses; and Diamond Heist, a community-style event in which all players on the bank compete for diamonds to add to their vaults. Each player gets a chance to “steal” diamonds from other players on the bank, creating a competitive environment. Another standout on the video side is Orb Lock, a persistent-state style of game that involves accumulating orb symbols. “When you get a certain amount of orbs within the base game, it triggers a re-spin, and orbs landing in the same spaces multiply wins. The game builds up high anticipation of when the orb feature is going to hit.” The video offering that Ehrlich says has been the biggest surprise success this year is the Empire DCX, with its inaugural games The Mask and The Karate Kid. “I was really pleasantly surprised how well these games are doing, on a new set of hardware,” Ehrlich says. “It’s been hot out of the gate—as good as The Vault or Smokin’ Hot Stuff Wicked Wheel.” In all, Ehrlich says the diversity of Everi’s game content is what will 58

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

sustain the supplier for the next year and beyond. “When I go through all the different product categories, this is what excites me,” he says. “There’s such a lineup, one behind the other, with all these different swim lanes, that I think we’re really set up for some pretty great things.”

Digital Growth Meanwhile, the Everi Digital division is capitalizing on the burst of demand spawned by the industry shutdowns to establish a growth path for the long term. The company’s proprietary remote game server has accelerated the company’s move into new real-money online gaming markets. “The major story for us in the last 12 months or so has been the amount of distribution we’re able to do, and the amount of traction we’ve gained with operators,” says Lucchese. “We now cover about 90 percent of the market in New Jersey, and we have four other casinos we expect to sign before the calendar year ends.” In August, Everi Digital announced an agreement with MGM Resorts International and GVC Holdings’ Roar Digital joint venture to deepen its online footprint in New Jersey with three of its top traditional three-reel mechanical titles. “It’s an underserved segment,” says Lucchese of the traditional threereel model. “The other suppliers don’t do it. Nobody has steppers like we have, and some of the online operators offering these aren’t really familiar with steppers, because they had come from Europe. And as soon as we deploy those (stepper games) and they see the performance, they’re hooked.” Next on the agenda for Everi Digital is Pennsylvania, to be followed with West Virginia, Michigan and other states as they launch iGaming. “We went live in Pennsylvania with very surprising success, and I say surprising because people were timid about the market,” Lucchese says. “But considering the volume there in our content, Pennsylvania has done an incredible job penetrating into what I think is a very, very healthy player set, and our partners are definitely capitalizing on that.” Beyond the U.S., Everi Digital is now live in Quebec, and is ready to establish a footprint in other Canadian provinces. “We have inroads to go

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live in Canada in all the provinces where it’s legal,” says Lucchese. “So we’re not just stopping with Quebec. We’ve won the RFP with British Columbia Lottery Corporation, and are already working towards five other go-lives in Canada.” Everi currently has content on 19 real-money casino sites, and Lucchese estimates that by the end of the year, Everi will have some 50 titles ready for real-money iGaming sites. That’s in addition to content on 43 social casino sites, and growing. “We have been working towards making sure that the experience of the game feels like a land-based game,” Lucchese says, offering the simple threereel game Cash Machine as a prime example. “Cash Machine was a hit game for the last year and a half on the landbased side, and has been an absolute monster for us in real-money iGaming,” he says. “Everywhere it launches, it rises to the top position and stays there.” He says the next opportunity will be bringing Everi’s progressive game library online. “This is the future, and it’s where we’re headed this year,” Lucchese says. “It unlocks a huge portion of our content library that has seen success on the land-based side. Going into 2021, expanding that library is going to be huge for us.”

cabinets naturally promote social distancing without disabling machines, and the company is working with its customers to facilitate Plexiglas barriers where necessary, and doing it in a way that does not interfere with machine maintenance or other operational necessities. But the largest area of partnership with customers, Ehrlich says, involves ensuring the flow of high-earning product continues. “We’re continuing to deliver on the strength of our pipeline across all the product categories, and working with our customers to generate higher returns in their product investments,” he says. “It’s important our customers have confidence in what we’re producing, to know that we’re invested in our customers, and that we aren’t going anywhere.”

Looking Ahead Everi is in a great position going into a new year everyone hopes will afford some type of return to normalcy for the industry. For instance, the company will look to again ramp up its annual national TournEvent tournament competition, with satellite tournaments hopefully leading to a new $1 million TournEvent of Champions final event in Las Vegas, canceled this year for the first time due to the Covid-19 crisis. At last count, there were 5,000 serverbased TournEvent machines in the field, at 400 casinos and counting. The custom-designed tournament system is augmented with new base games annually, in an evolution that has been ongoing since the system was first introduced in 2006. As far as new content, the company is in good shape entering 2021. “We’re definitely delivering on the pipeline of new game content,” Ehrlich says. “We’ve been in our best run that we’ve had; in all the product categories, there are must-haves, and now it’s time to get that product on the floor and see how much we can continue to grow our floor share, and help our customers to make money.” The difference from former years, of course, is the need to “partner with customers in the Covid environment,” says Ehrlich, who notes that the pod configurations possible with Empire Arena, Empire DCX and other OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

Born to Run

Gaming Arts runs with inventive game styles as its product library continues to grow

wo years ago, Las Vegas-based Gaming Arts, a well-established bingo supplier founded by inventor David Colvin, entered the casino slot market with its first group of games displayed at the Global Gaming Expo—games designed by a collection of industry veterans Colvin had assembled specifically for the task. At the time, Keith Kruczynski, formerly a longtime Bally game design professional who Colvin brought in to help create a new slot game library, commented that the company’s plan to enter the slot market would be deliberate and carefully planned. “Crawl, walk, run” was the plan, he said then. “In 2018, we crawled, to get enough games to the G2E show,” says Kruczynski, now vice president of game development and design for Gaming Arts. “Last year, we avoided the sophomore slump, and we started walking. This year, we’re running. I’m proud to say we have 17 individual titles approved, and by the end of the year, we’ll have 30.” Early last year, the company placed its first games in California in the Pop’N Pays series, a group of fun games with inventive mechanics and highvolatility math. Later in the year, the company began delivering the Da Fa Ba Series of Asian-style games. The Dice Seeker group of games that use rolling dice as bonus game mechanics was next. But Covid-19 intervened. “It was tough, because the shutdown literally happened the week before our first installation of Dice Seeker,” Kruczynski says. Not that the industry shutdown shut anything down at Gaming Arts. “We didn’t miss a beat,” Kruczynski says. “We had to make some adjustments, working from home and switching to (Microsoft) Teams so we could support more people on a virtual call—for me, the communication is fundamental—but R&D never missed a beat.” In fact, Kruczynski says this year’s volume of games is even higher than past years. “There are people who really thrive under that work-from-home situation,” he says. “I think the concern was that the creativity would suffer. It really didn’t suffer, and the productivity was actually better than what I think it would have been, had we all been at the office.” As Gaming Arts President Mike Dreitzer puts it, “We used the pandemic time wisely over the past five months.” That applies to more than just the games themselves. Company owner Colvin, who already had an arms-length list of patents

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

to his name, began an intense R&D effort before the beginning of the industry shutdown, subsequently launching PlayerGuard UVC Systems, an array of UVC disinfecting and sanitization products specifically engineered for the gaming industry. Before the industry had begun to reopen, Gaming Arts began developing equipment for EGMs, playing cards, chips, dice, shufflers, bill acceptors and more that use UVC lighting technology to continuously sanitize surfaces and equipment. Meanwhile, the game development efforts continued as Gaming Arts prepared to complete the launch of the Dice Seeker game group and other products such as Casino Wizard, a multi-game unit including four electronic table games in a single EGM, which has taken off immediately. “Up until the pandemic, we went through what you would consider to be typical growing pains of a younger manufacturer,” notes Dreitzer. “The reality was that we had 100 percent of our customers close down, which clearly wasn’t a good thing. However, it did enable us to have focus on creation of games, rather than dealing with field issues that had arisen. It’s odd to say, but looking back, I think it made a difference.” As casinos have begun to reopen, adds Kruczynski, Gaming Arts has benefited from its ability to create games and get them approved quickly. “We have a great relationship with the independent test labs, where they’re comfortable with our code and we’re comfortable with their testing,” he says. “We did a lot of work on the platform, and that has paid dividends. What happened in March and April is paying dividends now.”

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Time to Roll With the industry back to work and moving toward some sort of normalcy, Gaming Arts is picking up where it left off, first with the rollout of that game series that was ready in March, Dice Seeker. Dice Seeker is launching with three inaugural games—Viking Invasion, Heroes & Villains and Flappers & Dippers. All have a persistent dice feature. When die symbols land on any of the reels, the pips—1 through 6—will “hit” a symbol or character pictured above that reel, reducing the hit points on that character from six down to zero. When the symbol reaches zero, it bursts to reveal a credit prize, free games or a picking bonus. According to Kruczynski, since the game series was displayed at G2E 2019, his team has improved the graphics, transforming the visuals into a Pixar style of animation. Kruczynski says Dice Seeker has proven to be one of Gaming Arts’ most popular game series so far, but as that series resumed its rollout, the company’s executives got a pleasant surprise with the rollout of another product, Casino Wizard. Casino Wizard offers video versions of blackjack, baccarat, craps and roulette, with the same rules and game play as the live table games, and with operatorconfigurable elements such as craps odds, blackjack rules and single, double and even triple zero for roulette. According to Jean Venneman, chief commercial officer for Gaming Arts, experience at one of her former companies (and Kruczynski’s), Bally Technologies, told her a single-machine electronic table game offering would translate into a product that would, at best, find a niche audience. “At Bally, we had roulette in a cabinet configuration for years, and a lot of properties would take one or two and put them in a corner, and they would perform fine,” she says. “So, we thought Casino Wizard would find a small niche.” Just the opposite has happened with Casino Wizard, says Kruczynski. “The first place it was installed, we got numbers that caused us all to do double takes—7.5 times house average in coin-in,” he says. “We said that can’t be right, considering the hold percentage—those are traditional games that hold 1, 2, 3 percent. And they’re still generating 2.5-three times the house average in win.” Venneman attributes it to timing, with respect to the Covid shutdowns. “We could have introduced the exact right product at the exact right time,” she says, “because of two things—In some cases, tables are closed, so for table players, it’s a nice alternative. And in other places where tables are open, there could be players who just aren’t comfortable being seated with others and interacting with others. So it gives them an opportunity to play a table game in a more isolated environment.” “People have said the pandemic presented an extra opportunity for electronic table games,” adds Dreitzer, “which may be the case, but with our box we take that one step further. As a single-player game, you can socially space 62

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completely, especially if it’s in a pod configuration, and you can play all of these table games. And we’re seeing in a couple locations where they have shut down tables, they’re putting this in to fill a need. And what we’re seeing from an average bet perspective is that people are playing these more like table games than like slots.” “The average bet is huge, relative to what you would see for an average slot,” agrees Venneman. Kruczynski says another advantage is that there is no waiting for other players, and no pressure from other players. “You’re not playing at anyone else’s speed; you’re at your own speed. You’re not waiting for a clock to tick down for the wheel to spin or for the dice to roll. You play as fast or as slow as you like—and without anybody saying you should have done this, or you should have done that. This is your own personal game.” “Obviously, as a small company, we look for points of difference,” says Dreitzer. “And when you talk about this single-player game that has multiple (table) game choices, there is very little that competes directly with that.” Kruczynski says of all the Casino Wizard units currently in the field, not one has returned revenue below the house average, and all, in fact, are well above house.

New Groups, New Games Gaming Arts is launching several new game groups to join its “running” business. Just approved is the Halotop, a round LED topper for video games that adds a patent-pending persistent-style wheel feature. The first game group using this feature is the Inferno Wheel series, offered on the Phocus S104 hybrid cabinet. Inaugural games are Aztec Awards, featuring a three-level progressive and a free-games feature offering up to 99 free spins and 50X multipliers; and Polynesian Pays, with a choose-your-volatility free-games feature offering up to 10X multipliers and a multi-level jackpot. Also on board for approval is a new slot platform using a giant concentric wheel, with eight initial titles. It was unnamed as of press time.

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Other new game groups include the Wu Series of Asian-style games, glad we could be of assistance there.” featuring a lighthearted lion character in games like Dancing Happy Lion, Meanwhile, the content continues to flow. “We’re sticking to our guns which includes random expanding wilds and retriggering free games; and with our motto, ‘Fun for the Gambler,’” says Kruczynski. “It’s present in Dancing Little Dragons, which features a choice of volatility in the free-spin everything we do, from the math to the art to the presentation. It’s really round. who we are, and how we want to be different from everyone else.” Other new groups include the Shi Fu Series, in which the player collects gold, silver and bronze icons on the reels in a persistent-style feature; and another persistent-style game group called the Egyptian Gem Series, in which the player collects bubbles on the screen that award free games, credit awards, or multipliers up to 100 times the bet. As these and games that were displayed at last year’s G2E are released—the hilarious Hamster Libre, for one—Gaming Arts game development continues to roll on, not only with proprietary development but with a stable of some of the top third-party content suppliers in the business. Kruczynski says the third-party business runs smoothly because of the company’s software development kit, which he calls a “fine-tuned machine” because outside content can be converted to the Gaming Arts platform in as little as two weeks. “I’m the first one to say I don’t have all the answers when it comes to game development, and these (thirdparty) teams have a lot of creativity, and great inno. vation they’re giving us.” Venneman says the company will thrive as operSuccess in the gaming industry requires maintaining the upper hand. Businesses cannot take full ators rebound from the Covid crisis. “We have seen advantage of opportunities without effectively managing legal and regulatory matters. the pricing models shift, post-lockdown,” she says. RMC can help with this aspect of your business. Our experts have more than 35 years of collective “A lot of the operators have frozen their capital for experience in the casino gaming industry and assist clients on a multijurisdictional basis. Not only do we understand the intricacies of regulatory guidelines, we stay abreast of the latest state, federal the year, because there’s so much uncertainty, but and local gaming laws to ensure your business is in total compliance. RMC works with a network of we were anticipating a lot more participation modlocal legal and regulatory advisors to build a compliance model that is cost sensitive and effective. els. A daily fee or some sort of lease or participation You can trust RMC. We work with integrity and always strive to meet your needs efficiently, helping model is still very much in play with the customers. you stay ahead of the game. “A lot of customers think that in 2021, they’ll get a fresh capital budget, and hopefully things will Our expertise is comprehensive and includes: have settled down enough that there’s more cert .VMUJKVSJTEJDUJPOBM TVQQMJFS MJDFOTJOH t #BOLSVQUDZ BOE SFTUSVDUVSJOH tainty, but I’m actually pleasantly surprised at how t (BNJOH DPNQMJBODF QMBOT t 'JOBODJBM BOBMZTJT BOE DPOTVMUBUJPO t $PSQPSBUF QMBOOJOH t *OUFSOFU HBNJOH DPNQMJBODF well some of the operators have rebounded.” t (PWFSONFOUBM BOE SFHVMBUPSZ NPOJUPSJOH TFSWJDFT t $SFEJUPS SJHIUT BOE DPMMFDUJPO Jason Babler, product manager and internat /FX HBNJOH UFDIOPMPHZ MBCPSBUPSZ t 'FEFSBM SFHVMBUPSZ DPNQMJBODF tional business development manager for Gaming TVCNJTTJPO QSPDFEVSFT (e.g., Johnson Act/Title 31/FACTA) t (BNJOH SVMF BOE SFHVMBUJPO ESBGUJOH t .BSLFUJOH BOE BEWFSUJTJOH DPNQMJBODF Arts, adds that the company’s product configurat $PNNFSDJBM BOE /BUJWF "NFSJDBO PQFSBUJPOT t -PDBM HPWFSONFOU BEWJTJOH tions are perfect for easing back to business while the pandemic is still present. “We were really lucky that our recommended R EGU L ATORY M A NAG E M E N T COU N SE LOR S , P.C . configuration is the pod format,” Babler says. “In all of our pod configurations, the machines are more than 6 feet apart. So, we were able to say, Mr. CusFor more information about how RMC can assist your business or organization, tomer, these don’t need to be spaced in any way, call 517.507.3860. shape or form. We even saw customers putting rmclegal.com competitors’ games in that same format, so, I’m

SUCCESS IN THIS INDUSTRY HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH LUCK

OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

Keeping the Focus IGT continues to maintain a focus on game development, testing and customer outreach as the industry reopens

very year, IGT launches new cabinets and a complete lineup of games to fill all of its diverse hardware formats. This year is no different, with one exception. Normally the manufacturer displays these innovations at the Global Gaming Expo. Of course, as we all know, this year is anything but normal, but the fact there is no G2E this fall won’t stop IGT from displaying new cabinets, new video and stepper slots, new video poker games or new system functionality to its customers. On September 23, the company was slated to hold an “IGT Virtual Showcase” event, a 60-minute combination of presentations and video footage showcasing all of the above. And then there’s the “IGT Road Show,” a sort of mobile trade show in a custom-built 40-foot trailer that has been visiting customers across the U.S. and Canada. The Road Show, which had it origins with IGT legacy company GTECH, features a rotating portfolio of IGT’s newest slot games, ETG products, systems and more. IGT, despite the pandemic shutdowns, has plenty of new product to display at these unconventional trade events. “We have continued to remain very focused on product development,” says Nick Khin, IGT chief operating officer, gaming. “As you’ll see, we have got a lot of new games and new form factors.” Those new cabinet introductions have become an annual rite for IGT. This year, there are no fewer than five new formats, which began with the release of the PeakBarTop unit early this year and continued this summer with the unveiling of two more new cabinets in the Peak hardware series— the PeakSlant49 and PeakSlant32.

Forms and Games Each of those new cabinets is being launched with an exclusive suite of games, of course. The PeakSlant cabinets can perhaps best be described as portrait cabinets with the comfort and ergonomics of slant-tops. The PeakSlant49 premium cabinet features a progressively curved 49-inch display and advanced technology throughout. It was launched this summer with the inaugural game Fortune Coin Boost!, which will be followed up with a content pipeline that includes Bubble Blast Link and Dragon Lights. Fortune Coin Boost! is a sequel to the certified Proven Performer For66

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

tune Coin that features a five-level linked progressive jackpot, a progressive picking bonus, and “Credit Boost” coin symbols in the primary game that increase credit amounts in winning combinations by 1X, 2X (“Super Credit Boost” symbol) or 3X (“Mega Credit Boost”). In the progressive pick bonus, Credit Boost coins can increase progressive levels or remove the lowest progressive from the field. Bubble Blast Link is a game series that has been an IGT success in Australia for several years. Base games including Treasures of Atlantis, Genie’s Wishes and Spells N Whistles all feature the “Bubble Catcher” game mechanic, in which bubbles float over the reel set during a spin, and pay off if they land on a pearl symbol, with credit awards, “Bubble Multipliers” or free games. In the jackpot feature, the player can win several credit awards in addition to a progressive. Dragon Lights, utilizing IGT’s Progressive Free Games mechanic, features an array of special wild symbols including wilds that spread across a reel or column. Add a wheel to the PeakSlant49 and you have the PeakSlant with Wheel, home to Wheel of Fortune Mystery Link, the first version of IGT’s venerable game-show franchise to include a hold-and-re-spin bonus feature and player-selectable multi-denom function. The PeakSlant32 cabinet is a core video cabinet featuring three 32-inch full-HD monitors, all integrated for a seamless appearance under dynamic attract content. “We’ve got some really exciting new content we’re launching on that cabinet as well, exclusive to that form factor,” says Khin. “This is the only triple 32-inch for-sale cabinet in North America,” adds

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“Initial results from the PeakBarTop are very, very encouraging. I’m really excited about the performance we’re seeing.” —Nick Khin, Chief Operating Officer, Gaming, IGT

Michael Brennan, IGT’s vice president of product management. Inaugural games for the PeakSlant32 include core video offerings Wolf Run Gold, Treasure Box and Wu Dragon. The first is a sequel to one of IGT’s most popular games, enhanced with modern features and more advanced animation. All the popular features of the original Wolf Run are present, including the wild Howling Wolf, with special bonus features including a “Wilds Added” sequence that can randomly add up to 16 gold wild symbols to the reels. Treasure Box is a linked progressive with two base games centered on its bonus, which introduces a new persistent decrementing feature, and adds variety and new twists to a hold-and-spin playoff. Wu Dragon is a clone of the popular theme Star Goddess. Frames appear on various reel symbols, and the dragon character’s breath periodically turns them into wild symbols. The other Peak cabinet, the PeakBarTop, is gaining steam after being released shortly before Covid-19 hit. The advanced bar-top unit, which is a drop-in replacement for IGT’s legacy G20 bar-top unit, adds a lineup of the company’s most popular video reel slots to the standard video poker and keno games. It features a 23-inch curved screen that minimizes glare, a smartphone charger, Bluetooth capability and an easily accessible maintenance setup. “We’ve got quite a lot of PeakBarTop units out in the field now, I’m pleased to say,” Khin says. “Initial results from the PeakBarTop are very, very encouraging. I’m really excited about the performance we’re seeing.” One more new product in the Peak hardware group is a new compact Peak Terminal for IGT’s portfolio of electronic table games. The new player terminal places the ETGs on the advanced Ascent platform, according to Paul Baskerville, director of ETG product management, who notes that the company’s new multi-game ETG allows the player to instantly switch between three different table games. The new terminal uses the same monitor as the PeakBarTop. “This reduces the space footprint,” Baskerville says. “Operators can now place the ETG player terminals in various configurations for social distancing.”

The Cobalt One more new cabinet this year is serving a dual purpose for IGT in video lottery terminal markets and as a new video poker form factor. Called the Cobalt 27, it features dual 27-inch monitors in an ergonomic setup designed to fit into the tight spaces typical of VLT locations. “The VLT locations are very different from casino environments,” comments Khin. “That’s also the reason our game solutions are different for VLTs. We have multi-game packs for the VLT markets, because you want to make sure that every machine that’s in a truck stop and every machine that’s in a restaurant or bar location has a wide choice of games for players.” IGT launched the new Cobalt 27 over the summer in Georgia and Louisiana, as well as IGT’s first installation in a Pennsylvania truck stop. The launch includes a new custom set of popular IGT video reel and video poker games. “We’re really excited about it,” Khin says. “Right now, the Cobalt cabinet is the No. 1 performing cabinet in Georgia—the highest-performing cabinet in the state—and by the way, the No. 2 cabinet there is another of ours, the Prodigi Vu. That is an exciting development.” The Cobalt 27 also is IGT’s new upright video poker cabinet. Its ergonomic design solves many of the traditional issues of discomfort players have experienced with older upright video poker games, its curved monitor configuration eliminating the uncomfortable reaching typical of older upright designs.

Video, Stepper, Poker, Keno Other standouts in IGT’s lineup of new premium video offerings include several games that employ the popular persistent-play mechanic in a variety of ways. One of the highlights on the company’s CrystalCurve cabinet is Regal Riches, which introduces the brand new Progressive Wilds mechanic. In the base game, Blue Gems increment the Guaranteed Wilds feature, which randomly can fill the main video screen with wild symbols. In the free-spin feature, special gem symbols increment the number of wild symbols in Minor, Major and Mega Free Games pots. When triggered, the feature will award the corresponding number of wilds for that pot, and distributes these wilds across 10 free games in an explosion of wild placements that can result in huge wins. In Lunar Disc, a sequel to the popular video slot Solar Disc, the player’s goal is to collect six disc symbols to award wild symbols or a progressive jackpot. In Amazing Money Machine, the object is to collect as many coins as possible in a set number of spins. IGT has not left its industry-topping collection of stepper games out of the new game mix. Focus on high- and mid-denomination continues plus with the nine-line 3X Wild Diamonds and 15-line 5x5x5x Jackpots, while low-denomination features several new games that add unique twists to traditional games. OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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Hot Hit Wheel Blaze adds a wheel bonus to the popular Hot Hit series of steppers, featuring dynamic symbols, a free-spin bonus and a multi-level linked progressive jackpot. Legend of Phoenix is a sequel to the Progressive Free Games family, adding a new “Free Game Bonanza” bonus pot. Finally, the video poker field continues to be dominated by IGT. In addition to the new Cobalt upright cabinet, IGT is placing video poker favorites on the CrystalSlant premium cabinet. “The graphics really pop on the 27-inch screen,” comments Darnell Johnson, IGT’s director of product management who oversees the video poker lineup. “The angle of the CrystalSlant screen works out great for video poker play, and the games have transitioned to the Ascent platform.” IGT has launched new versions of its Game King and Super Star video poker multi-game platforms, which both can be placed on the new PeakBarTop cabinet. The new lineups include a combination of single-hand and multi-hand poker, as well as slot content, table-game content and several new keno games. New video poker games this year are typical of IGT’s strategy of offering various bonus features in exchange for increased bets of six or 10 coins per hand. (The higher wagers fund the bonus features without the need to alter the pay schedule). Standouts this year include Super Hot Roll Poker and Ultimate X Gold. The original Hot Roll Poker uses a random roll of video dice to award a multiplier on the deal of certain hands. The total on the dice awards a multiplier of up to 12X, which applies to all hands in play. The new version, Super Hot Roll Poker, applies the multiplier to both the current hand and the following hand. Ultimate X Gold adds a similar persistent feature. Instead of applying the multiplier to a specific hand, it applies the multiplier to a hand on the pay schedule which sticks until it hits. Another standout on the video poker side is Stack ‘Em High, a multihand game that awards up to nine additional hands when two Aces or Deuces, depending on game family being played, are received on the initial deal. Drawn Aces or Deuces then replicate into remaining hands, making it easier to fill in big wins. According to Johnson, IGT has reworked video poker for Class II markets. In traditional Class II video poker, the numbers generated on the bingo draw translate into the end result of each hand—the result is predetermined, regardless of the player’s draw choice. In the new Class II poker platform, the math of the bingo draws has been adapted to mirror the math of traditional video poker, for the deal and the draw. “We mapped the bingo card to match the number set of regular video poker,” says Johnson, “so now the Class II game plays like real video poker.” 68

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

New keno entries tap into the themes of some of IGT’s most popular video slots. Wolf Run Keno, DaVinci Diamond Keno and Alien Attack Keno add multipliers and free games to the traditional keno setup.

Systems and Digital In addition to the game offerings, IGT’s Advantage casino management system is in the spotlight of the Covid-19 era for one predominant factor—its ability to facilitate cashless, reduced-contact play in the casino. “That’s the hot topic right now,” says Khin. “It’s been a big push for us for a number of years; IGT has been working on our cashless solution for a long time. There are not many positive things to say about Covid-19, but the one thing I can say is maybe the whole Covid-19 situation has been a catalyst for operators to think about whether or not this is the time to adopt these kinds of solutions.” The IGT Advantage suite’s Cardless Connect solution allows a player’s smartphone to become a loyalty card, and its Resort Wallet function transforms a smartphone into a secure digital wallet, enabling players to easily transfer funds to and from gaming machines and fund play using their mobile device. Players simply tap their phones on any Cardless Connect-enabled gaming machine to card in, then easily and quickly transfer funds between slot machines on site, as well as between a casino’s sister properties. “We’re very excited about that,” Khin says. “We’re now working closely with a number of our casino partners to get this live. Our cashless solution is live in North America, and we’re working with one customer internationally as well to get it live. “IGTPay is a solution we have in the interactive world, that allows players in the interactive world to transfer money from their bank accounts or credit cards or other accounts into their wallet, and then to use those funds in their wallet to play games online. We have integrated that solution with our casino management system, Advantage. “While other gaming industry suppliers may need third-party payment services to provide the funding gateway, IGTPay has everything a casino needs to implement a full-service cashless solution.” And of course, the other industry segments that have been accelerated by the pandemic shutdown are online gaming and mobile sports betting. “We have seen a good level of activity there, and we continue to do well in that space,” Khin says. “We separate that space into two buckets: We have iGaming, where we have a platform that is used by the likes of Penn National in Pennsylvania, but we also have a sports betting platform. I think we’re up to 14 states now, where we have our sports betting solution live and operational. I’m hopeful that in the very near future, we’re going to be making some very big announcements in terms of wins in this area. “We just set up a new trading team here in Las Vegas. We didn’t have that

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The IGT Advantage suite’s Cardless Connect solution allows a player’s smartphone to become a loyalty card, and its Resort Wallet function transforms a smartphone into a secure digital wallet, enabling players to easily transfer funds to and from gaming machines and fund play using their mobile device

before in North America. We had something internationally, but we didn’t have a trading team in North America. We just set one up in Las Vegas, so now we’re able to offer a full turnkey sports betting solution.” On the iGaming side, IGT games are live in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, and are on deck in several states considering internet gaming. According to Khin, IGT maintains a huge library of its games online. “Every time we come out with a new video game, we port to our remote gaming server,” he says.

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Looking Ahead Looking forward as the industry continues to emerge from the Covid-19 crisis, Khin says one big advantage is the return of full test-bank activity on new games. IGT has prided itself on only offering games for general release that have gone through rigorous live testing to assure they are high earners. “One of the keys to our successes we’ve enjoyed the last couple of years in the core video space has been our test bank program,” he says. “And we are now back up and running—the test bank program was closed for obvious reasons. Now we’re expanding it into the premium area as well, so a lot of the multi-level progressives we have just developed are going to go onto the test bank program. This should be good news for our customers. The games we’re selling to them now have gone through the test bank program, have passed the test bank program, and have become proven performers.” For the coming year, Khin says the company will continue to serve every market as it returns to full capacity. “The regional markets have seen good activity since reopening, and have seen players really wanting to come back and play, and play has been robust. But then you look at destination markets, tourist markets, and they’ve struggled a little bit more than regional markets. “I think it’s very much going to be market to market, but all we can do here in terms of helping our customers is making sure we’re developing the very best content, the very best games—and more importantly, that our customers have our very best content on their floors.”

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

New Horizons Incredible Technologies uses the industry’s pause to complete movement into Class II and iGaming markets, while continuing new game development

ncredible Technologies has always been a company ready to move into new areas of technology—beginning, of course, with its move from its traditional amusement game business built around the legendary Golden Tee Golf game into the gaming industry with its first casino slots in in 2008. By the time of last year’s Global Gaming Expo, production of Golden Tee Golf had been moved out the Vernon Hills, Illinois office where it had been produced since the 1980s, to make room for its expanding casino gaming business, as a diverse slot manufacturer with many of the most inventive cabinets and bank configurations in the gaming industry. Like most other slot manufacturers, IT had been humming along successfully in March when the industry shut down suddenly due to the Covid19 pandemic. Unlike some other manufacturers, though, new game development did not shut down when the company’s customers were idle, and in fact, increased to the point where the new game volume this year is running ahead of last year’s lineup. “IT is very lucky being a private company, always very risk-averse and not debt-heavy,” says Daniel Schrementi, the company’s vice president of gaming sales and marketing. “We’re a self-funded company, with the Golden Tee and the gaming side of it. We were lucky we didn’t have to shut down anything.” He credits the company’s two principals, President and CEO Elaine Hodgson and Executive Vice President Richard Ditton, for keeping IT’s entire operation going through the industry shutdown. “Our owners were spectacular throughout this,” Schrementi says. “We furloughed nobody. The office closed, everybody switched to remote workfrom-home immediately, and oddly enough, game design is the one department that got ahead of everybody through all this. I think that department has been more efficient through this time than any. We actually have a backlog of products right now waiting to get into and through GLI. “So game design actually got more creative from people’s basements and kitchen tables, and everywhere they’re working from, because they have fewer distractions.” Of course, the only problem in having a backlog of product ready for approval is that it can’t all be launched at once. “We set out to make about 60 games this year, and we’re going to make that target,” Schrementi says. “The only change that will happen is once those actually get pulled through

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

certification and launch, you don’t need to place them until you’ve got room to place them.” IT never launches a game for general placement before it has gone through rigorous testing at live casinos—historically, the company has restricted general release of games to those that have been proven performers in test banks. With casinos idle for two and a half months, the testing process was halted as well. However, IT, as opportunistic as ever, used the industry’s Great Pause to accelerate moves into new product segments that had already been on the front burner when Covid-19 hit—namely, Class II and iGaming.

Class II, Online Moves On September 8, IT announced its official entrance into the Class II market, offering products on its freshly minted Class II gaming system to tribal operators across the country. The company partnered with Class II Solutions to integrate that company’s Class II system into IT’s existing platforms. The company had successfully field-tested its central-determinant system at Wisconsin’s Ho-Chunk Casino and the Four Winds Casino in South Bend, Indiana. “We had been working on launching the Class II segment of our company; it was launching right before Covid hit,” says Schrementi. “Now, it’s a huge focus for the company.” Schrementi says that because of the backlog in Class III games ready for certification, the development team was able to allocate more time to the development of Class II products. “First and foremost, the toughest hurdle to get over is the development of a system,” he says. “We partnered with somebody on that development process, to develop a bingo engine, and a wide area network, etc., but we want to have that system thoroughly tested before we launched. We were going to debut all this at NIGA, and NIGA never happened.” He says Ho Chunk and Four Winds were the company’s partners in getting the system ready, and the increased attention to Class II development meant the company is able to release games to Class II markets in two phases.

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thing about the style of our games that makes them play well online. And that will initiate huge opportunity as more states and more sites come online.” “Our Phase One markets will be greenfield markets,” Schrementi says. “Washington state, for instance, has never had a game like Crazy Money, or Crazy Money Deluxe, or State of the 8s. So in those markets, we’re starting strictly with hit titles from the existing catalogs. But meanwhile, for some of that development pipeline, we have pivoted the teams onto new titles for Class II. So in mixed markets, like Oklahoma and California, we’ll have custom titles with a focus on innovation, designed strictly for Class II. “And we’ve learned a lot from this process. You’re able to see earnings a lot quicker, and see performance a lot quicker. Our company has always been very heavy on testing products before we sell them, so we’re going to put some crazy ideas out there, see how they do in Class II, and then maybe move them to Class III. That’s a new opportunity, and the Covid shutdown really helped us focus a lot of energy on that.” Over the next few months, the company will focus on Washington state and Alabama, with the Poarch Band of Creek Indians. Oklahoma and California, both “mixed” markets with both Class II and Class III offerings, will likely be next in 2021. The Class III backup also benefited IT’s move into a gaming segment that heated up during the shutdown, online gaming. “We took some of those resources and moved them to iGaming as well,” Schrementi says. “That’s something we were able to focus on—since we’ve got enough games right now for Class III, let’s focus some of these teams on developing new tools for iGaming.” IT actually has been increasing its iGaming footprint for around five years, beginning by partnering with aggregation platform supplier GAN. “They’re still a good partner,” Schrementi says. “They’ve got games of ours deployed in New Jersey and Pennsylvania that are among the top-performing games in the market.” Last year, the company signed a new aggregation deal with Reno-based Spin Games. “They’re basically our closest partner in our path to developing iGaming,” says Schrementi. “They have our games on their ROC2 RGS, and we have a unique deal in place that allows us to build the library. “Right now, we only have a handful of games live in New Jersey, and they’re at the top of the charts, which has gotten us a lot of attention. We’ve got 16 more in motion—we started with two, and honestly, we’re going to put our foot on the gas pedal beyond that. What we are happy to see is that good games land-based are good games in the iGaming space. “We’ve got a ton of irons in the fire—we’re talking to partners in Europe and other markets—but as most states come online in the U.S., there’s some-

New Game Rollout Because of the glut of Class III games ready for certification and testing, for the next few months, IT will concentrate on finishing the rollouts of new games begun at the beginning of this year. Many were out in the market only briefly. “We’ll probably end up developing more games this year than we did last year,” says Schrementi, “but we’re allocating them differently, because of the change all companies experienced—there were a couple of months of not deploying themes, so we had games that were going out right before the shutdown that never got the light of day until right now.” Those games will go out through the end of this year and early next year, according to Kelsey Sullivan, marketing manager at IT. “A lot of the games we’re really excited about were released early this year, but they’re still very new in terms of time in front of players,” Sullivan says. “Now, games on all of our cabinets are picking up performance right where we left off in February or March.” Those new offerings can be found in all of IT’s diverse cabinet styles, including the large-format V55 cabinet. Examples of this year’s releases on the V55 that Sullivan says have performed well before and after the shutdown are two sets of sister games—Prize Pool Cactus Cash and Fierce Dragon; and Happy 8’s and Jolly 8’s. The Prize Pool and Fierce Dragon games use the giant monitor above the reels to display a prize pool grid of 20 credit amounts, mirroring the 20 spaces on the reel array. In the primary game, gold “Prize Pool” scatter symbols on the reels increase the credit amounts on the corresponding prize-pool spots. Prizes remain in place and continue to grow as the gold scatter symbols land. If the player lands four Prize Pool scatters of any color, the corresponding amounts on the grid are instantly awarded. Happy 8’s and Jolly 8’s both offer persistent-play features. The games’ main primary-game feature is “Scatter Blast,” an innovative accumulation mechanic for bonuses, progressives and added wilds over a cycle of eight spins. On the eighth spin, all wilds are released to the 40-line reel set below for potentially huge wins. Any progressive awards or bonus meters that have been filled with their respective scatters are also awarded. After eight spins, all bonus and progressive collections are reset to start the cycle over. Other highlights this year include new content for the Infinity cabinets launched at last year’s G2E, the immersive Infinity Pilot and Infinity Summit formats. OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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The Infinity Pilot is designed to give the player an immersive experience by flanking the main 55-inch vertical monitor with two 29-inch displays— 58-inch monitors that have been cut in half, basically. The effect is cinematic, creating what is almost a private chamber for the player. The Infinity Summit is designed as a new “premium core” cabinet, with a 4K high-definition monitor on top of the main 55-inch display, angled down toward the player. Of course, the timing couldn’t have been better for the release of these cabinets, particularly the Pilot’s private chamber. Schrementi says products like the Pilot, the Edge product released last summer and the company’s standard pod configurations have helped operators keep IT games on with safety in mind. A recent Eilers & Krejcic survey showed that of all the slot suppliers, Incredible Technologies had the least number of games inactive on gaming floors due to social distancing. “We have no games idle, really,” he says. “We’ve got most of them back on, and a lot of that is because of our Edge product and all the crazy shapes we have. We wanted to design so people wouldn’t have to sit near each other and see each other when they played, and that ended up being beneficial for other reasons.” According to Sullivan, one new game on the Infinity Pilot that is doing twice the house average in earnings wherever it is placed is Crazy Money Double Deluxe. A launch title in the Double Deluxe family, the game uses the immersive setup to display a 13-line reel set including Double Deluxe Wheel Scatters, triggering a wheel that awards free spins, bonus credits plus a re-spin, or a progressive jackpot. The bonuses include the interactive Money Catch bonus, where players must tap floating money for credit awards. On the Infinity Summit cabinet, one standout is Money Roll, another game doing two times house average, according to industry reports. It is part of the Roller Wheel game family, which features two progressive jackpots that scale with the bet and three jackpots that scale with the bet level. The primary game features “Rolling Reveal” stacks of symbols that trigger big wins. During free games, the reel set expands to double size, and the feature can be retriggered up to a total of 100 free games. 72

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

Meanwhile, IT continues to feed newly approved games into property banks for testing. As of late August, there were 20 games in the test bank program. “The good news for the industry is that the test banks have all fired back up,” says Schrementi. For the longer term, Schrementi says IT’s development team is in the midst of developing its next-generation slot platform. “We are knee-deep—we were prior to Covid and still are—in probably the most radical investment into hardware innovation that we’ve ever done,” Schrementi says. “We’ve tabled our timeline. Our Infinity platform that we’ve been innovating on is about six years old, so we’re due for something big. “We want to have a place for our games where people recognize them when they see them. So, we’re taking a big swing for our next set of hardware. It’s timed out to be launched later next year.” Meanwhile, Incredible Technologies will continue to transform Covid setbacks into opportunities, by taking the opportunity to diversify into the Class II and iGaming segments. “Diversification for our company was the primary concern before Covid, but the pandemic just put an exclamation point on having multiple channels,” Schrementi says. “Look at the big companies. They have multiple channels, multiple avenues of revenue. That is the way you survive. And as a smaller company, you have to pace yourself as to when you introduce all that because you don’t want to sink the ship trying to innovate. Thankfully, IT is at a very healthy point to do all this, and thanks to our owners, to be able to continue to invest smartly.”

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

New Dimension

Konami forges ahead with new hardware, new content and an omnichannel approach

onami Gaming entered 2020 with a plan to push its technological edge to the next level, in all phases of the business. First, the hardware housing Konami games from core to premium levels was beginning a new era, a new cabinet series poised to evolve the company’s offerings after a decade of advances in the Podium and Concerto series. New games with innovative mechanics as well as tried-and-true game styles were ready to populate the new form factors. Meanwhile, Konami was prepping to move into new segments of the gaming market, namely Class II and central determinant lottery. Everything seemed to be on track when the first in the Dimension series of cabinets, the Dimension 49J, was launched along with a potential monster game called All Aboard, at California’s Morongo Casino. That debut occurred in mid-March. Within a week, the entire industry would be shut down. With casino operations on pause, suppliers like Konami were in survival mode like everyone else. Costs were cut, furloughs implemented, extra marketing activity—notably, trade show participation—was suspended. However, Konami was as quick as any company in the business when it came to taking a setback like the pandemic and finding opportunity. New energy was directed into diversification. The systems business gained steam as Konami tested its first “cashless markers” at Ellis Island in Las Vegas, using a module of its Synkros casino management system. And game development didn’t miss a beat, pivoting quickly to remote operation. “We obviously had our challenges like everyone else, but we’ve had remote work policies in place,” says Thomas Jingoli, executive vice president and chief operating officer of Konami Gaming. “We were fortunate the governor of Nevada deemed manufacturing an essential business, so we upheld operations throughout the shutdown.” “In the initial days of the pandemic,” adds Senior Vice President & Chief Product and Strategy Officer Victor Duarte, “there were certain actions we took that were not dissimilar from other companies, but they were really very focused. We had a short furlough during the month of April, but then we came back full-steam-ahead in May, and we’ve just been working very hard at getting a roadmap full of different products and cabinets.” Jingoli says it helped that Konami operates game design studios in

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

three locations worldwide— the U.S., Australia and Japan. “One of the benefits is that we do have three essential studios around the world, which does allow us to keep moving forward. When the pandemic hit, (President and CEO) Steve Sutherland and I sat down and agreed that we would to use this as an opportunity to keep the company moving forward,” he says. “As a company we’re very fortunate to have a very low debt structure. We pay rates of approximately 1 percent on our debt. That was an advantage we felt we had over our competitors, and we wanted to keep the company moving as best we could, obviously considering the health and safety of our team members.” The overall effect is that Konami plans to launch more games this year than last year. “That’s in spite of our facing the issues with the pandemic and a short shutdown,” says Duarte. “But we’ve actually implemented, through (Vice President, Studio Operations) Jason Kremer and (Senior Director, Game Development) Ian Arrowsmith, a number of measures that have made us more efficient, plus the utilization of third parties, which is part of our strategy. I believe our roadmap is going to be increasing this year versus last year.” “From a game design point of view, there had been an opportunity to take a little step back,” says Arrowsmith, “because we had some down time, to survey what was going on at Konami, what was going on in the market, and just take more time to innovate. The fruits of this little breather we had will be some excellent and compelling games.”

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“The fruits of this little breather we had will be some excellent and compelling games.” —Ian Arrowsmith, Senior Director, Game Development, Konami Gaming

Forms and Substance Konami’s most high-profile new game releases this year are inextricably linked to the three new cabinets in the Dimension series. “The roadmaps are chock full for all three of those form factors,” says Duarte, “and we’re continuing to support some of the existing product lines as well, so we’re definitely doing a good job of maintaining a high cadence of game development, while also supporting our platforms in a good way.” The brief debut of the Dimension 49J picked up where it left off when casinos reopened, by which time Konami was ready to introduce the two sister cabinets in the series, the Dimension 27 core cabinet and the Dimension 49 flat-screen portrait cabinet. As far as the new games, “we’re trying to have a blend of styles,” Duarte says. “We want to make sure we honor the legacy of Konami, and the strongperforming franchise titles like China Shores, with ports, derivatives, and evolutions; that’s a big part of our strategy. But we also want to make sure that we have an eye toward innovation to get non-traditional game types for Konami into the market.” The Dimension 49J cabinet, targeted for premium lease games, features a 49-inch 4K ultra-high-definition portrait display with a “J” curve at the bottom. The design creates an immersive play experience, helped by customized LED sign displays, enhanced audio and optional premium LED chairs. “We put a lot into the design of this cabinet,” says Molly Condron, Konami’s director of product management. “We wanted it to look sleek, so it has a nice 49-inch 4K monitor with a slight curve at the bottom. It has a 27-inch topper, and it has the two bash buttons, which has become a popular feature.” Condron says the overall strategy for the Dimension 49J is to “create inhouse brands with a slightly more gambler-style delivery, targeting that higher-volatility player.” The first result of this strategy is All Aboard, the inaugural 49J title. Base games Dynamite Dash and Piggy Pennies feature a free-game bonus and a persistent hold-and-spin bonus feature, the latter tied to the linked progressive jackpot. The main feature in both games, the All Aboard feature, is triggered by six or more scattered train symbols. When the feature is triggered, all the train symbols transform into credit awards. After the win is registered, the credit awards remain in place on the reel array and all other spots become independent reels, re-spinning for three free spins. Each time an additional train symbol lands, it reveals a new credit award,

and all of the credits on the board are awarded again. The free-spin count returns to three, and the feature continues, re-awarding the total credits on the board with each new train symbol. The feature continues until no free spins remain, or until the entire screen is filled with credit awards. If train symbols are landed on all 15 reel spots, the player is awarded the linked Grand Jackpot. “With All Aboard, you’re targeting that higher-volatility player, but we also want to make sure we’re bringing things that have that entertainment factor, which is what all of the premium products have,” says Condron. “All Aboard has multiple bonuses, different features, and the multi-level progressive. We’re really looking at it as a two-pronged approach with the player base we’re trying to attract.” All Aboard took off when casinos reopened this summer, and is now returning good results. Two more titles for the Dimension 49J, Silent Hill and Ocean Spin, are set for release by the end of the year. Condron says their release was delayed as orders poured in for All Aboard—a brand which itself is slated for follow-up games from Konami’s Australia studio. Initial results show win per unit upwards of 2.5 times house average, according to Condron. “It’s done fantastic for us, and we’re very excited to get it out there. Many of the best results were achieved in very competitive locations OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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of casino floors.” Duarte adds that big results from pent-up demand immediately after the shutdown ended remained for All Aboard after other games had returned to average earnings. “Week one performance after the pandemic (shutdown) was crazy, with 98 percent occupancy,” he says. “It was hard to see any given product separate from the pack, but All Aboard keeps going up. In one location, after seven weeks, it’s doing four times house average. “We think we have a hammer here, and we’re going to do everything we can to roll it out in a thoughtful way.” For the next few months, Konami will roll out games for the Dimension 49J from its series of games based on Konami’s own “Silent Hill” video game depicting a fictional ghost town; and Ocean Spin, an original linked progressive series, designed exclusively for the 49J. Ocean Spin features synchronized animation effects, spanning into the topper and across multiple game cabinets. Throughout primary play, bubbles of potential bonus opportunities float seamlessly across game screens of every connected machine.

More Dimensions Konami’s Dimension 27 was designed as a new core for-sale cabinet. The company has identified it as the principal replacement product for the Concerto and Podium series of core video cabinets. It features three 27-inch high-definition displays, with all the modern capabilities of the Dimension 49J, like an interactive button deck, dual bash buttons, a USB port and a wireless charging pad. “We really look at this as being our principal core for-sale cabinet,” says Condron. “When you think about what your strategy is for this cabinet, almost anything goes. You’re looking at ports, and clones, as well as evolutions of tried-and-true brands, like Mayan Chief, China Shores and African Diamond.” The Dimension 27 also will host the SeleXion series of multi-game machines, “which has been incredibly popular for Konami,” Condron says. “It’s one of the best multi-game engines out there.” Condron says the Dimension 27 will host Konami favorites like the Quick Strike series and Mystical Temple, but will also add new originals. “We’ll also look at new things, where we can try innovative game features that Ian’s team comes up with,” she says. “We can try them out on the dualscreen cabinets before we move them to the portrait screen formats.” Games will also be offered on the cabinet in the Quad Spin Series, on which the player can play up to four reel sets simultaneously. The cabinet is slated to launch by the end of the year featuring Konami favorites including SeleXion, China Shores, Ancient Dragon, Money Blast, Rawhide and Roman Tribune. The first calendar quarter of 2021 will see the release of Patrick O’Potts of Gold and the Dragon’s Law progressive link. 76

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

Also early next year will be the release of Dimension 49, the flat-screen version of the cabinet featuring a 49-inch 4K portrait monitor and an optional 27inch topper, designed to give players “a premium experience with a for-sale product.” “This will be the new portrait cabinet for Konami,” says Condron, “so we will really want to have a higher caliber of content on this. We’re trying to attract the gamblers and the jackpot-chasers, so most of the games will be bankable, and will have features common among the game series.” Among the launch games for the new portrait cabinet are Guardians of the Aztec, a linked progressive series featuring Konami’s “Strike Zone” mechanic; Quick Strike Extreme, a link based on the Quick Strike series; and Treasure Ball Duo Luck, which takes the original Treasure Ball Extended ROM game to the next level with integrated progressive win opportunities. “The Covid pause gave us time to plan, so it will be a robust launch,” Condron says of the Dimension 49. “We’re launching with over 11 games, so it will give the operator many different series to choose from—The Guardian series, the Fortune Mint series, more traditional Asian game groups. We also have the triedand-true brand Triple Sparkle. We put the Triple Sparkle feature on both Lotus Land and Imperial Wealth—another pair of popular games.”

From Systems to Interactive The pandemic has had the effect of actually boosting business in a few segments. As casinos have reopened, there’s been a new emphasis on pursuing cashless, contactless play at slot machines.

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The company’s SynkConnect cardless player tracking system, part of the Synkros casino management system, includes a mobile application that enables a player to view the funds they have in their cashless wagering account, and pair their mobile application to the EGM either with NFC or by scanning a QR code on the player tracking display, to enable them to “card in” with their mobile application and download any of the cashless wagering funds directly to the slot machine via the mobile application. In July, Konami went live at Ellis Island Casino in Las Vegas with Marker Trax, a patented system developed by Ellis Island CEO Gary Ellis that links with the cashless technology in Synkros to issue cashless credit markers to slot players. “The early numbers we have seen doing business with Gary over at Ellis Island have been very encouraging,” says Jay Bertsch, senior vice president of North American games and global systems sales for Konami. “We’ve had a lot of interest in the product. Right now, we are looking at a major casino in Southern California to go live as the first casino outside of Nevada.” It’s one more example of how the Synkros system is thriving, Bertsch says. “With all that’s going on with the pandemic, Synkros is experiencing a record year,” he says. “We just did the install at Morongo, 5,000-plus units, in July. We’re going live at San Manuel in October, and then Resorts World Las Vegas will be summer of 2021. Our systems group has really done a fantastic job, making our best-in-breed, best-of-show product we have right now, and we’re trying to capitalize on that.” The other area of opportunity during the pandemic, of course, has been online gaming, where Konami has enjoyed wide acclaim for its library of games available to social casinos and real-money gaming sites in New Jersey and Pennsylvania. Konami had populated its online footprint through an aggregation partner, but over the past year, the company developed a proprietary remote gaming server. “We’ve taken that in house, so we can control our destiny, and control our roadmap in a better way,” says Duarte. “In New Jersey, we originally started with our partners. In Pennsylvania, we acquired the source code, and we’ve put our own servers into operation. We’ll convert all our B2B social and B2B real-money clients by the end of this year. The expectation is that we’ll be fully in-house with that platform. We have quite a bit of interest, and we’re monitoring whether Michigan will be the next big jurisdiction to go, and in all the Canadian provinces we’re also actively discussing Konami content. “So if you’d looked at us a year ago from a real-money standpoint, it was New Jersey. By the end of next year, we’ll have four or five jurisdictions we’re operating in.” Konami also has a partnership on the social gaming side with Playstudios to implement a strategic omnichannel release of games—starting with All Aboard. “We brought that game out in pilots to the land-based casinos—our first installation was right before the shutdown. But when we got back open in May, we rolled out All Aboard,” Duarte says. “At the same time, Playstudios did an active promotion on All Aboard, and they had really good play and good feedback and performance on that game.

“And then come this fall, we’ll have All Aboard in New Jersey and Pennsylvania online gaming, a relaunch with additional games on Playstudios, and the continued rollout of All Aboard in land-based venues. So, we’re doing a lot to make sure there’s synergy between all our channels.” For the future, Konami is working on perfecting a central determination engine, which Duarte says the company will announce in the “near term.” That engine will open up Class II and other new markets to the company’s games. “Whether Class II, historical horse racing or traditional lottery systems such as Washington, we have made some investments into our underlying platform that will allow us to support those central determination systems,” Duarte says. Meanwhile, the company will continue to work with customers to refresh floors at a time when capital budgets are strained. “The interesting thing about the pandemic is that on the game side of the business, we’re seeing a little bit of a shift,” says Bertsch. “Where it was direct sales before, what we’re seeing now is a reshuffling of participation.” “We try to be a good partner, and be flexible,” adds Jingoli. “I think we’ve done some very flexible financing on both the games and system sides. We’re here to support the customer. We know they’re having a difficult time like we are. And in these tough times, I think that’s one great thing about working for Konami. We’re very flexible. And we’re trying to do everything we can to help our partners and our customers recover. “We’ve always tried to be dedicated and support our customers’ needs, whether it’s on the game side or the system side. But the one great thing about our industry—if you have good product, product that performs, it’s going to find its way to the floor.” OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

Strong Comeback In a year of seismic upheavals, Novomatic Americas is collaborating with its partners to help them come back stronger and more resilient

or the gaming industry, the loss of G2E 2020 was an unprecedented development—and for many, a personal disappointment. According to Matt Ward, vice president of product development for Novomatic Americas, the 2020 show “would easily have been our best G2E ever, with a number of games that were successful earlier this year showing good legs as casinos reopened. A number of games coming out of the pipeline in the second half will be exciting, too.” “We had our best quarter ever coming into April, and then Covid hit,” agrees Rick Meitzler, Novomatic Americas president and CEO. “Our mantra has remained, ‘Together, we can do it.’ By bringing together our team, and a comprehensive suite of products, systems and service, we are positioned as a customer-centric, value-add partner of choice for our customers in North America. We continue our steady and intentional growth and building on our success.” The company’s agile organization and support from the parent company in Austria puts Novomatic Americas “in a favorable situation,” Meitzler adds, “and we recognize the hand-up that we can lend to our customers. We’ve worked with them to ensure the best outcome through Covid-19 because we are truly partners. When our customers win, we win.” Novomatic Americas hasn’t slowed the pace, but increased its output of premium and core slots. New to the Class III slot catalog is Golden Seas. This swashbuckling, pirate-themed game is the fourth entry in the wildly popular Thunder Cash multi-level jackpot family, with two popular bonus events, including a “Coin Respin” lock-and-spin feature. Novomatic’s Money Party linked progressive family is also expanding; its Fruity Fruity and Juicy Juicy models have found a place alongside Thunder Cash on casino floors in the U.S., and have done “quite well out of the gate,” says Ward. Both are available on the Panthera 1.43 Curve cabinet and the V.I.P Lounge Curve 1.43, and both base games are loaded with familiar fruit symbols. That success of that series warranted a third title, Yummy Yummy, now in the pipeline. Novomatic has also released a family of stand-alone progressive titles in its Asian Aviary series. Eternal Mandarin Ducks, Royal Crane and Noble Peacock, which originated in the company’s Mount Prospect, Illinois design studio, offer richly detailed, jewel-toned graphics, and a lock-and-spin feature “with a bit of a twist,” including a coin-filled crimson envelope that can trigger bonuses, free spins and jackpots. “We’re always looking for ways to celebrate wins,” according to Ward. “In

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

the case of the red envelope, players know something special is coming, but don’t know how many coins will appear or if they’ll trigger the bonus.” In late 2019, Novomatic introduced Dancing Tiger and Dancing Lantern to its Class III portfolio. The latest evolutions of its successful Asian Fortunes game, the games feature symbols with timeless appeal: glowing lanterns, ferocious tigers, and an ancient emperor “with a potful of money,” ready to be claimed by players. The games’ jackpot mechanics and entertaining trigger features are designed to keep players playing. In addition, Novomatic’s Ji Deng Gao Zhao link will be introduced later this year with Lucky Trail, a Pick&Win progressive in which a lucky lantern lights the way to fortune. The Lucky Twist link with Lucky Twist Matrix-Dynamite Dragon and Lucky Twist Wheel-Money Ki Neko will keep players engaged while entering the bonus matrix or getting the winning wheels spinning. Each Novomatic game is work-intensive, taking a minimum of nine to 12 months to develop, says Ward. Each goes through multiple prototypes and iterations on math simulators to achieve an optimal game play experience. “We reject a lot of ideas,” Ward says; only tried-and-tested games make it to market. Acknowledging the extraordinary challenges now facing the industry, Novomatic’s established myACP casino management system, first launched in 2001, has been updated to ensure that slot players keep a safe distance as they gradually return to the casino floor. The updated system includes a disinfection function, that alerts casino staff that the machine needs to be cleaned prior to reuse. The system’s Neighbor Machine Lock is self-explanatory: it enables staff to lock machines on either side of a machine in play; the next-door machines can easily be reactivated once the play session ends. Globally, the myACP slot management system supports a network in excess of 30,000 machines and is fast becoming a fixture in U.S. route markets, particularly Illinois. A multi-functional check-in kiosk, in sizes suitable for any VGT location, performs essential player loyalty, points management

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and marketing functions. The kiosks come in several dimensions: with a 43inch display, for larger VGT lounges; and two versions with 17-inch interfaces for smaller locations. The Novostar V.I.P. 3.50 is popular with route operators across the state as an easily implemented tool for performance management, maintenance, and the new Novo Rewards player loyalty module. “We’re looking to use this in other route markets,” including Pennsylvania, says Ward. “It’s an ideal system, low-cost and lightweight, but full-featured. It works very well for small venues. We do all the accounting, all the monitoring, all the maintenance tracking and TITO—any functionality like that. “We bring a lot of strength to what we call the street market,” he observes. “That’s really the core strength of Novomatic worldwide. Our games have been very successful, we have the right types of cabinets for those locations, and we have a really strong multi-game mix that performs exceedingly well in those markets.” Novomatic’s ActionBook self-service sports betting kiosk, now in more than 800 casinos and sportsbooks, can take a beating in a sports-n-suds atmosphere, and should be welcome in more venues as sports betting expands across the U.S. “As a sports betting terminal option, we are fast, efficient, customer-centric and work with premium software providers to bring an operator’s retail vision to life—quickly,” says Kathleen McLaughlin, casino industry veteran and Novomatic Americas vice president of marketing. “We work in lockstep with

our customers to come in on time and under budget. Novomatic ActionBook provides great value and a player-friendly, familiar betting experience.” Though the industry at large likely will not gather until this time next year, and casinos may not return to full strength for many months, “We’re still looking forward to our best year on record, with the demand for the Novomatic ActionBook exceeding any expectations, the steady rollout of our new Money Party link to complement the successful Thunder Cash link, and our strong systems and game success in the Illinois VGT market,” says Meitzler. “Our immediate goal is to ensure customer care, service and support along with Matt’s continued pipeline of new and innovative games. It is a matter of building customer confidence, maintaining credibility and delivering on our commitments.” With or without G2E, McLaughlin adds, “Our portfolio demonstrates our continued commitment to driving customer growth. We always focus on the player with content designed to engage, entertain and surprise our players, in a new way.” Despite the speed bumps caused by the global health crisis, “we are prepared to showcase a range of games, innovative cabinets and systems that our customers can place on their floors with confidence, knowing that we support the performance and have a roadmap of development across our entire product and solutions portfolio. “From VGT to Class III, we continue to make strides in a great direction.” —By Marjorie Preston

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

One-Stop Shop Scientific Games augments its diverse product portfolio with a renewed emphasis on a culture of service

or decades, Scientific Games Corporation has resided near the top of the slot market, building up a deep product library serving nearly every aspect of casino operations. That history of success, however, does not preclude improvement, renewal or even a transformation in corporate culture. That is the mindset of Matt Wilson, who took over as CEO of the Gaming Division at Scientific Games in March this year, after leaving his former longtime company, Aristocrat Technologies in June of last year. In his 16 years at Aristocrat, where he completed his stint last year as president of the Americas, Wilson oversaw a transformation of that company’s North American business under former CEO Jamie Odell—a transformation that saw Aristocrat beef up its R&D with the top game designers in the business, move toward a gaming operations model with some of the most high-profile brands in the business, and inch further toward the top of the slot market. Wilson now plans similar success at Scientific Games, which had courted the executive under advice from that same Jamie Odell, who had been working as an adviser to SG CEO Barry Cottle for the last 15 months. Just recently, it was announced that Jamie Odell and former Aristocrat Chief Financial Officer Toni Korsanos will become the new executive chairman and executive vice chairman, respectively, a result of the recent acquisition of Ron Perelman’s shares in SG by a number of long-term institutional investors, including the highly credentialed gaming industry investor Caledonia. “We’re really focused on four key areas of transformation for the organization,” Wilson says of his plans to move Scientific Games forward. “First, as any great gaming supplier, you rise or fall on the strength of your product, so we are focused on developing best-in-class products and solutions for our customers across our portfolio. “We’ve hired Rich Schneider, who was the chief product officer for Aristocrat the last eight years, to join us and lead the R&D organization here,” he says. While Schneider is waiting out his non-compete until next year, Wilson and his leadership team are working hard to build a talented team at Scientific Games, complementing the existing talent at SG with some key external hires. “We believe in building a positive, people-centric culture driven by a core set of values,” Wilson says. “It’s really a fundamental part of our longterm strategy. Successful organizations are built by great teams that attract

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

and retain high-performing talent through an engaging culture, and that’s what we aspire to create at SG.” The third and fourth pillars are commercial execution and operational efficiency, he says—“the teams executing well across our value chain to create a great customer experience, and then focusing on operational efficiency, which is about making sure we deliver on time and on schedule. “Those four pillars are what’s going to drive the transformation at Scientific Games.” Wilson says he was attracted to Scientific Games because of the diversity of the product portfolio. “Scientific Games maintains a unique position in our industry; no other supplier has the breadth of our portfolio,” he says. “For a casino customer, anything they want to buy from a gaming standpoint, they can likely buy it from Scientific Games. We sell slot machines, lease games, table games, shufflers, iGaming, sports betting, systems, cashless solutions... That’s the end-to-end opportunity for us to create value for our customers. “For operators, they are looking for great product across all those verticals, and consolidating their spend with Scientific Games can create value for them.”

Keeping R&D Going In this most unique of years, Scientific Games, like other suppliers, had to improvise to keep development progressing in all of those verticals. “We quickly had to look at our cost base, and manage through a difficult situation,” Wilson says. “We largely kept the R&D teams intact. There

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was always this theory that game design was one of the things that had to be done on-site, because when designers are building product, they want to put it onto a slot machine to test it, see how the lighting works, see how the animation will look on a slot machine. “We’ve kind of dispelled that notion. The game designers have done an incredible job building games from their kitchen tables, working through video conferencing platforms to review games... We’ve been blown away by people’s ability to create outside the four walls of the building. I think society in general has figured out pretty quickly, through necessity, how to operate in the new normal. I don’t think we’ll ever go back to the office 100 percent of the time. I think we’ll be a lot more flexible going forward, which helps in recruiting top talent.” The fact Scientific Games has game design studios around the world certainly helped keep R&D moving forward—and, notes Wilson, sets the company up for the future. “The things you do today are really placing bets on the industry 18 months from now,” he says. “That’s the development cycle. So the games we’re releasing and will release this year were conceived 18 months ago. The decisions we make now will influence next year.” Because of the continuous motion on the development front, those products this year will include the typical examples of innovation the industry has come to expect from SG, beginning with the annual rite of introducing new form factors. “I remember when I was working with Aristocrat, in 2012 I came to the Americas. And we had launched one cabinet in the previous five years,” laughs Wilson. “And then a few years later, we launched five in one year. That just tells you the transition and the arms race that’s going on with hardware.” Scientific Games’ new weapons in that arms race come in the form of three new cabinets, all of which would have been front-and-center at the canceled G2E show. The first is Kascada, the next generation of the popular TwinStar J43, the cabinet that began the trend of J-curved monitors. Kascada presents a modernized version of the J43, with 4K graphics on the 43-inch monitor featuring an innovative new lighting package. Kascada will be launched with several inauguralgames based on some of Scientific Games’ most celebrated brands, including Coin Combo, a progression of Duo Fu Duo Cai, and Monopoly Money Grab, featuring one of the most successful slot themes of all time. Other games include Ultimate Fire Link Power 4, a multi-game unit allowing four games to be played simultaneously; Playboy Cash Wheel, which adds a wheel bonus to one of the supplier’s biggest brands; and other celebrated brands like Ultra Hot Mega Link-Egypt, featuring the player-favorite Ultra Hot Mega Link Fireball lock-and-spin mechanic, and a free-spin bonus in which the three middle reels form a “mega-reel” for bigger wins. The second new cabinet is a new large-format form factor. Called the Mural, the cabinet stands 13.5 feet tall. A product pipeline for that cabinet will be announced soon. The other new form factor injects new innovation into the electronic table game segment. The Quartz Hybrid features an immersive 26.5-inch high-definition LCD flush-mounted player touch screen, on a player station that allows the player to wager concurrently on up to eight different games, including both automated table games and live-streamed dealer-assisted games. “We’re very excited from a hardware perspective,” Wilson says. “We’ve got great game designers, and content is king; it will always be king. But hardware is the canvas for artists to produce their best work, and we’re also focused on that.”

Brand-New That best work this year will include new entries in all product categories, and across an enviable collection of ongoing slot franchises. “We’re a house of brands here,” Wilson says. “We’ve got some great proprietary brands, and I think the best third-party brands in the business. “Willy Wonka, The Wizard of Oz and Monopoly are powerhouse thirdparty brands, and we’ve got a great catalog of proprietary brands. Think of 88 Fortunes as a category. Everyone’s doing Asian-style games now, but the original 88 Fortunes was designed by one of our best game designers, Qin, out of Australia. She created that concept, understands the psychographics of that core player and continues to iterate and innovate within that same genre today at SG.” Scientific Games has “new flavors” of 88 Fortunes on tap this year, says Wilson, including 88 Fortunes-Lucky Gong, which takes a page from the legendary game in the addition of “Golden Gongs” to an enhanced freegames bonus feature on an alternate set of reels. The new game also reprises the “Lucky Coins” picking bonus first seen in Duo Fu Duo Cai. Players pick from a field of 12 Lucky Coins to match three “Fu Baby” symbols for one of four progressive jackpots. Other popular Scientific Games brands are extended in various form factors. On the TwinStar 5RM five-reel mechanical cabinet is Dancing Drums Reels, a for-sale mechanical-reel version of the game consistently named No. 1 in industry video surveys. The TwinStar 5RM also hosts a new series called “Locked & Loaded,” a mechanical-reel adaptation of the popular “Lock It Link” hold-and-re-spin series. On the TwinStar Matrix cabinet is a new entry in the Penny Pier series of carnival-style games, which feature bonuses based on carnival games like “Test Your Strength” and “Drop ‘N’ Slide,” a bonus based on the kind of arcade game that has mechanical pushers shove coins to the player. (Think the old “Flip It” slot machine of the 1980s.) OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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Also on the Matrix is 123 Wild, created by the same studio as 88 Fortunes and Dancing Drums. SG also has new themes in the popular Super Colossal Reels, Drop & Lock and Quick Hit game groups. The latter is in the form of a new Quick Hit Blitz multi-game unit,, which offers a menu of all four Quick Hit Blitz games on one machine. New game mechanics are debuting on several games, including Cash Burst, that features a mechanic in which bubbles float over the game screen until matching up with Cash Burst symbols to award credits and multipliers.

System Strength, iGaming Strength One area that did not slow down because of the pandemic was SG’s Systems Division, currently connected to some 525,000 slots around the world. The biggest trends fueling systems growth are related to the need for casinos to reopen safely amid the pandemic. First, the desire to minimize contact points for a given player to guard against Covid-19 has pumped new life into the drive for cashless gaming options. “The IP we have around cashless gaming dates back to 2005, but it really took a global pandemic in 2020 to put it on the radar,” Wilson says. “If we asked our customers two years ago, what’s the future? What technology should we be investing in? Maybe the early adopters, 10-15 percent of our customers, would say cashless gaming is the future. “We did a survey in the middle of the pandemic and said, ‘We’re here to serve you. What should we be investing in right now?’ Every one of them—it was the top 20 operators around the globe—said cashless gaming is the future.” Scientific Games’ Unified Wallet solution can be funded either through a mobile payment gateway or at a cage with patron deposits. The type of payment method (credit, debit or ACH) depends on the payment provider chosen by the property. There’s also a mobile app; properties can choose SG’s mobile solution or integrate their existing app with SG’s Unified Wallet module along with a third-party gateway integration. With Unified Wallet, a player can transfer funds to and from the slot machine using the mobile app or through the in-game display at the slot machine. The mobile app enables a seamless transfer of funds from the wallet to the slot machine using Bluetooth connection. Wilson says cashless operations are overdue in the casino industry, given that digital wallets are commonplace in every other aspect of a consumer’s life. “Everyone seems to have the Starbucks app; it’s a very efficient way of transacting, and it provides greater security for both the casino and their patrons,” Wilson says. “In the context of cashless gaming, it’s all happening electronically.” 82

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

He adds that cashless pay methods are no longer the purview of young people. “In this pandemic, seniors are Uber-ing. They’re having products delivered to the house through Amazon. I think the consumer is more broadly aware that cashless payment is not just a millennial phenomenon now.” Another recent addition to SG’s systems is a social distancing and automated game sanitation module, which allows players to reserve an EGM and automatically disables surrounding machines. In addition to systems, Scientific Games has benefited from the boom in online gaming brought on by the pandemic. “I think we benefited from the diversity in our portfolio,” Wilson says. “If you look at our earnings results, we were down the least compared to all the peers in the space, and that was largely due to the fact we have diversified across a number of sectors. “We’re obviously heavily focused on the land-based casino market, which has been severely impacted, but we have a diverse portfolio. We’re very well diversified across all the verticals in the land-based market, but also in the digital world, whether it’s iGaming, iLottery, social gaming, sports betting—and with our lottery business, we’ve got all bases covered.”

A Year of Recovery Scientific Games’ one-stop gaming supply shop will carry customers into the new year, when cap-ex budgets might be rejuvenated. “There are still some customers investing in their floor right now, actually more than we had anticipated,” Wilson says. “I think what operators want to see are consecutive months of solid operations before they start to think, ‘What’s the level of investment appetite I have?’ “If we continue on the path that we’re on, and things progress through the back half of the year—in Q4, things look better than in Q3, and in Q1, that’s when all the cap-ex budgets get reset—hopefully, we’re at a point where customers are confident enough with the trends that we get back to something that’s closer to normal.” Wilson says he and his team are in continuous contact with customers in the meantime. “I’ve actually adopted video conferencing in a remarkable way,” he says. “I used to think I would have to fly across the country to visit our customers. Now, I have calls with customers every morning.” The pause in capital spending has given a boost to the participation side of the industry, and Wilson says Scientific Games is making an effort to help casinos with lease arrangements that fit their budgets. “We consider them partners, so we share in the mess that is the pandemic. So, we’ve done a lot of things to be a good partner during these tough times. “The casinos know they need to keep their floors fresh. I guess the analogy is, say, the movie business. Even if things are challenged, if you’re a movie theater, you’re not going to be playing JAWS for 20 years. You need new content. You need new, exciting things for people to go see.” Wilson says Scientific Games will continue to provide that new content as the nation emerges from the pandemic. “We’re bullish on the recovery,” he says. “We all know that humans are social beings. We know that more acutely now, with the fact we’ve been socially isolated. We’ve all been climbing up the walls ready to get back out into society. And I think as people get more comfortable with infection rates declining, they will return to casinos.” And SG will be there to prepare casinos for that return. “We have an ambition to build this organization to be the clear No. 1 gaming solutions provider in the world,” says Wilson. “That’s where we want to be.”

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

Synergy Blue Younger gamblers demand more interaction, more competition and more tests of skill. Make room for the “skill-influenced” games of Synergy Blue

oyride Jackpot isn’t your father’s slot machine. It’s one of the latest skill-influenced games from Synergy Blue, bringing back the joy of video racetrack games, with the player firmly behind the wheel. Introduced at Global Gaming Expo 2019, it’s the kind of game that grabs the next generation of casino players, millenials and Gen Z, who were raised on video game systems like Xbox and Nintendo. “Joyride Jackpot reinvents the slot gaming experience by blending exciting wagering with the thrill of realistic arcade racing action,” says Georg Washington, CEO of Synergy Blue. Players start by choosing among eight different race cars—from muscle cars to sports cars to exotics—all with unique driving features to match specific tracks. Some have better tires, others more horsepower. Still others come with better handling. Players choose from easy, medium or hard difficulty levels across five tracks, from a standard racecourse loop to winding mountain roads, and even a rainy night course through busy city streets. Drivers then collect coins on the track to place wagers. As in a traditional slot machine, players can change their bets or cash out at any time. Joyride Jackpot also features bonus rounds, which pay out a higher return for more skilled players. Interactive, skill-influenced games bring a new element to casino floors, geared towards an evolving demographic. While traditional games may always have their place, especially among older gamblers, the younger generation of players, who started out as gamers, expect more engagement when they gamble, according to Washington.

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

“They want to do more than push a button. They want an experience that echoes the plethora of games they’re already familiar with and enjoy. With skill-influenced games, we’re able to bring the modern gaming experience into the casino. And we believe that’s the key to attracting new demographics to the casino floor.” The rollout of new games from Synergy Blue hit a speed bump when Covid-19 led to a worldwide industry shutdown. Washington acknowledges the ongoing risks. “The casino industry right now is full of uncertainty, which makes it really challenging to predict what’s going to happen,” he says. “We were approved in Nevada for statewide distribution when the closures hit, so we’re

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eager to see how things progress as casinos reopen.” Despite the turbulence, Synergy Blue soldiered on, and the Las Vegas-based company plans to launch a slate of games in the fall. Look for Joyride Jackpot by the end of October in a handful of U.S. states, including Nevada. For many gaming manufacturers and operators, the coronavirus outbreak has caused a quick shift to iGaming, a natural progression for skill games. “Players can still have access during these challenging times,” Washington says. And iGaming should continue to be a factor even after the pandemic draws to a close. Synergy Blue recently conducted a survey of 1,000 gamblers, and found that 64 percent played online games during the pandemic. Of those, 93 percent indicated they would continue playing them after stay-at-home restrictions fall by the wayside. Synergy Blue’s games would be easily transferable to the online world due to their easy play and familiar genres, Washington says. Pandemic restrictions aside, many players remain concerned about health and safety, and may be more cautious about returning to brick-and-mortar casinos. If that becomes an issue, casinos will have to meet the challenge of attracting younger demographics to their gaming floors. “Our recent research, as well as trends seen in the first wave of reopenings, indicates that younger folks may be the first to return,” Washington notes. That means more skill-influenced and interactive games. “Skill games provide experiences that more closely align with the game play and quality levels that modern generations are familiar with.” Synergy Blue games rely on the company’s HAWG platform—Hybrid Arcade Wagerbased Gaming—which blends wagering with arcade-style game play and offers the quality and engagement levels of popular mobile and video games. The Synergy Blue catalogue features popular titles such as Lucky Candy Ca$h and Safari Match, mobile-style connect-three games wedded to great graphics and play. “We also have our version of the classic game mahjong, for those who prefer a more relaxing experi-

ence,” Washington says. Synergy Blue now has a presence in six countries, including inside Europe. “Within the U.S., we’re active in the California, Nevada and Oklahoma markets,” Washington says. “We are also working closely with casino properties and distribution partners in additional areas that are eager to see our products.” —By Bill Sokolic

OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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GLOBAL GAMES 2020

New Horizons When the land-based industry hit pause, this innovative game maker invested its time in improvements. It’s now back in expansion mode—on land and online

rading on the global success of Link King and Link Me games, global game innovator Zitro has unveiled more link-based slots: 88 Link and Bashiba Link, initially slated for release in European and Latin American casinos. The games had been introduced in Mexico and several other countries before the Covid-19 pandemic shuttered casinos worldwide. “We had to get through very complicated months, with little income, but very high operating costs,” says Sebtasián Salat, CEO of the Luxemburgbased company. “However, we’ve never lost confidence that the world, and with it our industry, would reopen and return, to a certain extent, to normalcy. We have not stopped for a moment creating new games for operators, and have invested our time in improving our processes. We’re making them even faster and more efficient, for when the industry is back in the game.” Founded by Johnny Ortiz in 2007, Zitro worked on an arsenal of new games for the Illusion, Allure and Fusion cabinets. Illusion includes a massive 43-inch Ultra HD curved monitor and a 21.5-inch LCD topper, along with an improved version of a touch-screen technology known as SmartDeck. The cabinet also contains an extremely powerful Triton processor and a cutting-edge digital sound system with sub-woofers that allow impressive graphics and audio. Their slim contours mean the Illusion, Allure and Fusion cabinets occupy less space on a casino floor than other machines on the market, according to Salat; the cabinets’ ergonomic design allows for plenty of leg space. “Zitro is geared up to help casinos reopening their venues by offering high-profit products that players love,” he says. Both 88 Link and Bashiba Link include multi-level stand-alone and local-area progressive jackpots. They provide players with exciting bonus rounds in addition to dazzling sound and graphics, Salat says. The new Link series, like existing models, features SynchroScreens, in which the upper

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

screens sync up on a bank level, creating a visual spectacle that is aesthetically comparable to cost-intensive overhead signage. 88 Link Lucky Charms, a multigame progressive bank that combines for the first time Zitro’s Link Bonus with a multi-way game mechanic on the Allure cabinet, offers four games inspired by Japanese culture. “The games proved extremely popular within the player community and highly profitable for operators,” Salat says. “We are resuming these launches and taking them and all of our great games to newer markets, such as Florida and Asia.” The first Link King units were installed in Florida, at the Gulfstream Park Casino, Hard Rock Casino, Dania Beach Casino and Coconut Creek Casino. The pandemic has also accelerated technological changes and the overall online business. Many land-based operators throughout the world have realized that online gaming is not just a business unto itself, but a way to maintain their player base and keep them entertained during Covid-19. “At Zitro, we have increased our efforts to provide video bingo and video slot games to the online casinos, and we will dedicate even more resources in order to expand our product library for this market,” Salat says. “We believe that the growth of the online gaming as a consequence of the pandemic will consolidate and even continue to grow further.” In the last few years, Zitro has evolved as a leading game supplier for Mexican casinos, with a growing presence throughout Latin America. The company has achieved similar success in Europe, where Zitro has focused on launching its products. The first installations have been completed in the U.S., and more banked games will arrive in Asian markets as casinos get back to business. “In regards to video bingo, we center all our efforts in commercializing these products in European, Latin American and Asian markets, where this type of game is extremely popular,” Salat says. Zitro made its mark first in bingo halls and then with video bingo before adding video slots in 2016. “We will be revealing new games as demand grows and as operators go back to usual business,” Salat says. “In the video bingo market, we have just launched a complete new and innovative set of games under the Dragon Lamp Progressive brand. This new package is taking traditional video bingo to a whole new level, offering complete new game mechanics that provide players with high-quality entertainment.” —By Bill Sokolic

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MAKING MY POINT

Making Friends, One at a Time

How an old book can help influence people in 2020 By Roger Snow

“This old pro, a copywriter, a Greek named Teddy, told me the most important thing in advertising is ‘new.’ It creates an itch. You simply put your product in there as a kind of calamine lotion.” —Don Draper, Mad Men

up, Dapper Don was as right, as right as the angle of his chiseled jawline: Everyone loves new. New socks. New shoes. New car. New car smell. It’s innately ingrained in us to elevate what we haven’t experienced over what we’re accustomed to. Which is why you never see “Old and Deteriorated” splattered across a can of furniture polish or a tube of toothpaste, but “New and Improved” is added ad nauseum. And the publishing world genuflects at the same altar. There’s always a de rigueur way to tackle something blasé, from curing your slice in golf to curing your slice of ham for the next picnic in the park. If you want to sell the latest issue of whatever it is, the new new thing is always king. Just look at business books. Every month there’s something hot off the press that climbs its way up the bestseller charts. Some tack hip and trendy with all the latest buzzwords, while others pay faux homage to ancient wisdom. Meh. It’s all endless and relentless, overwhelming and confounding. And after a while, the titles of these books all sort of blend together, like a semantical smoothie. And you, the reader, are left wondering: what exactly don’t they teach you at Harvard Business School about the seven highly effective good to great habits when building a team of cheese-movers? Ugh. Meanwhile, the all-time tome for business folks sits there, largely uncracked and unread. It was on business administration reading lists back in the day, so maybe it’s wedged between some textbooks the student couldn’t resell or, even worse, it’s un-wobbling a coffee table that has a limp. It’s forgotten or ignored or even

mocked, as was the case in 2008 when the movie version of the book—starring Megan Fox—came out with the title: “How to Lose Friends and Alienate People.” That’s right, we’re talking about the Bible of human interaction, the Torah of empathy and persuasion, the Quran of getting along—and getting what you want along the way—the 1936 Dale Carnegie classic How to Win Friends and Influence People. It may not make anyone’s desert-island reading list for, uh, obvious reasons, but if you’re anywhere on the corporate totem pole, this can help you shimmy higher up. True, at 84 years old, the prose comes across a bit corny, in a Prairie Home Companion kind of way. But once you get past that, it’s chock full of advice that will help your career flourish. Here’s a sample:

Say My Name Even if you’re not Walter White of Breaking Bad infamy, you want to hear your name. “Remember,” Carnegie writes, “that a person’s name is, to that person, the sweetest and most important sound in any language.” To ingratiate yourself to others, especially strangers, remember their names and use them frequently—just not so often you come across as phony. Case in point. In March 2011, right before Gavin Isaacs joined the company Shuffle Master as CEO, he met with a half-dozen or so executives. Coming from the slot world, it’s unlikely he knew any of them by face, let alone by name. However, Isaacs came prepared, shaking their hands—relax, it was nine years ago, before it was illegal—and referring to each of those men and women by name. Everyone was blown away and instantly won over. What’s in a name? Turns out a lot.

standing and forgiving.” Hey, complaining is fun. It’s entertaining. Comedians do it. SJWs do it. Anti-SJWs. But in business, you shouldn’t. It’s counterintuitive—some of the most successful business people are tyrants— but it’s actually counterproductive. It’s the whole catch-more-flies-with-honeythan-vinegar approach. Once you directly criticize someone, he or she is going to dig in. It’s Human Nature 101. And don’t argue, because no one wins. Ever read the comments on Facebook or Twitter? The next time someone browbeats someone else into changing his or her mind will be the first time. And the last time. Instead, Carnegie says, when you’re in a disagreement with someone, first find the areas of agreement. Even start off with a preamble like, “Well, I could be wrong, but have you considered so on and so forth?” Get your colleague saying yes over and over. Then you can start to inject a different point of view.

In Your Shoes Empathy is one of those words—prodigal is another, and according to the Princess Bride, inconceivable is a third—that doesn’t mean what most people think it means. True empathy is putting yourself in someone else’s shoes and understanding how they feel (uh, the person, not the shoes). “If there is any one secret of success,” Carnegie writes, “it lies in the ability to get the other person’s point of view and see things from that person’s angle as well as from your own.” Does it get any simpler than that? If you want to lead people, to influence them, to win them over to your way of thinking, you have to think how they think. Ultimately, you can’t convince someone to do something; only that person can do it. You just need to lead the way. Slowly and softy, with praise and approbation.

Relax, Don’t Do It When it comes to winging and whining, Carnegie has some advice: Stop before you start. “Any fool can criticize, complain and condemn, and most fools do,” he writes. “But it takes character and self-control to be under-

Roger Snow is a senior vice president with Scientific Games. The views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Scientific Games Corporation or its affiliates.

OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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What Stays in

Why conventions and meetings are key to a return to profitability for the gaming industry By Bryan Wyman and Tom Zitt

long with the broader lodging and leisure industry, the Covid-19 crisis has changed the gaming industry, in some ways forever. While regional markets are in recovery mode, the impacts have been deeper in resort destinations like Las Vegas. Reliant on a steady influx of travelers from across the country and beyond, Las Vegas’ woes are no better evidenced than by air traffic counts through McCarran International Airport, which are hovering at around 25 percent of 2019 levels at the time of this writing. Gaming trends have been well covered, but the effects of the coronavirus on important destination amenities like meetings and conventions are more nuanced. Las Vegas is no doubt a gaming town, but it is also a convention town. And no industry has proven more vulnerable to the pandemic than live events, a broad umbrella that includes concerts, weddings, conventions and trade shows. And no industry is subject to greater uncertainty regarding the timing and scope of recovery.

Industry Impact The convention and meetings industry involves several business sectors. Registration fees, exhibitor fees and sponsorships are revenue sources for meeting planners, event organizers, caterers, facility operators, audio-visual and staging contractors, tour operators and other vendors. Attendees and exhibitors travel to convention destinations, where they spend money on hotel rooms, meals, ground transportation and entertainment. Given the broad economic activity engendered by conventions and trade shows, it’s challenging to quantify the industry’s impact on jobs and GDP. Most jobs supported by the industry occur in other sectors, including restaurants, off-site entertainment and recreation facilities, transportation, lodging, retail and management and employment services. A profile of the 2016 U.S. meetings industry was conducted by Oxford Economics in 2018. While this study only captured a portion of the value of the events industry to the U.S. economy—it excluded social events (e.g., weddings), school events, concerts and recreational events, political events and consumer shows—Oxford nonetheless estimated that in 2016, nearly 1.9 million meetings were held, with more than 251 million combined participants, including both attendees and exhibitors.

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

Meetings Volume by Meeting Type and Host Type (2016)

Total By meeting type Corporate and business meetings Conventions, conferences, and congresses (without exhibit floor) Trade shows (including conventions, conferences, and congresses with exhibit floor) Other meetings Incentive meetings By host type Corporate Association /membership Non-government, not-for-profit Other Government

Meetings

Participants

Share of Participants

1,887,782

251,236,000

100.0%

1,354,651

134,110,000

53.4%

248,485

44,727,000

17.8%

9,422 190,228 84,997

39,978,000 17,120,000 15,299,000

15.9% 6.8% 6.1%

1,038,280 453,068 245,412 75,511 75,511

109,019,000 86,083,000 35,745,000 10,572,000 9,816,000

43.4% 34.3% 14.2% 4.2% 3.9%

Source: Oxford Economics, Economic Significance of Meetings to the U.S. Economy February 2018

Meetings Industry Activity Over Time

Meetings Participants Meetings direct spending (MM) Meetings direct spending per participant

2009 1,790,800 204,724,000

2012 2016 1,851,947 1,887,782 229,137,217 251,235,698

Growth (2009 to 2016) 5.4 % 22.7%

$263,444

$273,076

$325,045

23.4%

$1,287

$1,192

$1,294

0.5%

Source: Oxford Economics, Economic Significance of Meetings to the U.S. Economy February 2018

Direct meeting spending reached $325 billion in 2016, a 23.4 percent increase from 2009. Adding consumer shows into this discussion, leveraging data from the Center for Exhibition Industry Research (CEIR), recent analysis by The Innovation Group estimates that combined direct spending was $397 billion in 2019, with support for roughly 4 million jobs and a $238 billion contribution to GDP. This is to say nothing of the catalytic effects conventions and meetings provide,

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Amenity Usage by Recent (post-Reopening) Casino Visitors

lubricating the wheels of commerce. It’s difficult to estimate the impact of meetings on intra-industry commerce (2020 will provide an interesting case study), but recent surveys of executives indicate that nearly 100 percent believe the face-to-face meetings as facilitated by conventions provide an ROI.

Importance to Gaming and Hospitality The interplay and synergy between the convention industry and casino gaming is extensive. Particularly in cities such as Las Vegas, with its heavy reliance on tourism, conventions and meetings extend the usual travel season and provide meaningful occupancy midweek, at a time when it is difficult to fill rooms with casino guests. From a development standpoint, hotels and their expansions often rely on convention business to become financially viable. To put this in context, group room revenue—that is, hotel revenue associated with group room blocks—reached $41.7 billion in 2019, and not all convention attendees book into the hotel as part of a room block. According to Smith Travel, group business accounts for approximately one-quarter of total hotel room night demand in the U.S. The hotel, however, is not the only area of the business that depends on conventions and meetings to thrive. Convention visitors provide considerable cash revenue to food and beverage outlets, businesses that can have slim margins to begin with, and which largely service comp guests. Likewise, nightclubs and entertainment benefit greatly from corporate expense accounts. And of course, these additional tourists contribute to casinos’ gaming revenue. Regional markets are considerably different than destination markets in this regard. Regional markets have smaller convention centers and fewer hotel rooms and other amenities. To emphasize this point, regional gaming companies can see upwards of 90 percent of their gross revenue from gaming. The Las Vegas Strip, by comparison, only derives around 45 percent of its revenue from gaming. The cancellation of nearly all meetings and events due to Covid-19 has had significant effects on Las Vegas and other convention-heavy destinations, including Orlando, Phoenix, New York, Los Angeles and San Francisco. While amenity usage is low across the board—recent consumer research conducted by The Innovation Group shows that hotel and food and beverage usage are especially impacted—regional markets are less dependent on amenities. We see gaming revenues recovering in regional markets, particularly due to recovery in the highest frequency segments of casino guests, while we expect a much longer runway for destination casinos. On the other hand, as guests become willing to travel to destination markets, their attitudes toward amenity safety may soften as well, allowing for a more seamless recovery.

Source: The Innovation Group survey, August 2020

As discussed earlier, the contribution of this commerce extends far beyond registration and travel. The revenue supports jobs, not only in the convention centers but in the broader community, whose restaurants, shops and other attractions benefit from the influx of visitors. Multiplier effects of this business and employment income are realized as those dollars cycle and ripple through the broader economy.

Las Vegas Canary Las Vegas is one of the world’s top meeting and convention destinations. With 10.8 million square feet of meeting and event space, more than 150,000 hotel rooms and myriad entertainment options, it’s no surprise that Las Vegas welcomes more than 6.6 million convention-goers among its more than 40 million visitors annually.

Las Vegas Historical Convention Attendance Year 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019

Attendance 5,891,151 6,310,600 6,646,200 6,501,800 6,649,100

% Change 7.1% 5.3% -2.2% 2.3%

Source: Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority

Notably, the 3.7 million visitors who book hotel rooms as part of a group contribute more than $2 billion in room revenue annually.

Las Vegas Group Hotel Demand and Room Revenue (MMs) Total LV Visitors Percent in Group Segment Group Visitors Avg. Length of Stay Total Group Room Night Demand ADR Total Room Revenue

42,523,700 8.7% 3,698,227 3.7 13,683,439 $152.39 $2,085,219,270

Source: Smith Travel, The Innovation Group

OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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The Las Vegas Convention Center alone hosts more than 90 events per year, its renewed efforts and strategic plan contributing to more than 17 percent growth in 2019 versus 2018. Analysis The Innovation Group performed earlier this year suggests that the meetings industry had a total impact on the Las Vegas economy of more than $28 billion in 2019. It had a total (including multiplier effects) impact of more than 251,000 jobs and $17.4 billion in GDP—this in a metro area with a GDP just over $120 billion and a population just over 2 million.

Meetings Industry Total Impacts 2019 ($MMs): Las Vegas Impact Type

Employment (000s)

Labor Income

Value Added

Direct Effect Indirect Effect Induced Effect Total 251.5

174.1 36.6 40.7 $10,210

$6,370 $1,913 $1,927 $17,402

$10,327 $3,166 $3,909 $28,333

Output $16,232 $5,539 $6,562

Source: IMPLAN Group, LLC, IMPLAN System (data and software); The Innovation Group

However, Las Vegas reported 18 percent unemployment in June 2020 after more than 25 percent in May. Here we can see the economic damage caused by having casinos and conventions not operating, as the job loss was not only in casinos and convention centers, but percolated more broadly throughout the metropolitan area. While many conventions are nominally rescheduling for 2021, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority has slashed its budget for the next fiscal year by more than one-third in anticipation of a slow recovery. Gaming companies are experiencing broad-based and permanent layoffs and closures.

An Industry Restart: Challenges & Prospects The structure of the industry presents unique challenges for restarting in a Covid19 environment, especially with the pandemic’s uncertain trajectory in the U.S. The industry is complex in the best of times, with interdependent factors among stakeholders. Meeting organizers depend upon the expectation of a critical mass of attendees and buyers to underwrite a platform in which exhibitors, or sellers, participate; sponsors contribute to the bottom line; and venues are secured as hosts.

Event Planning Motivation Cycle The current Covid environment injects substantial instability into this planning process, not only in bringing personal safety to the forefront, but also considerations of content, format, location and venue. A further challenge is the timing and logistics involved in making this work, since events are typically planned years in advance. Event planners and suppliers have grown increasingly pessimistic as the virus has spread. They can be forgiven for their springtime optimism in rescheduling March and April events for September and October. But at this point, even spring 2021 events are not certain. The Professional Convention Management Association, or PCMA, has conducted surveys throughout the pandemic to understand how planners and suppliers are thinking over the coming months and after the pandemic passes. The July 1316 survey showed that 41 percent of planners and 27 percent of suppliers would not travel to an event in the absence of a therapeutic treatment or Covid-19 vaccine. 90

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

Planners are adapting to the new socially distant normal by shifting existing face-to-face events to a digital platform. Fifty-three percent of planners are moving their entire programs online over the next three months, 26 percent are adding a digital component to their events, and 21 percent are not redesigning their programs to digital platform. There are diverse opinions on how face-to-face meetings for the business events industry will recover in their geographic region. About a third of respondents (33 percent) anticipate smaller local and regional events to thrive before national and international groups gather. Twenty-seven percent think small in-person events will be hybrid, with events having a digital version for a larger audience. Nineteen percent believe there will be pent-up demand for all groups to meet face-to-face, but 14 percent are of the belief that people will be hesitant to travel to meet in person. Seven percent responded “other” as to how in-person meetings will recover, believing that no matter how it happens, there will always be a need for a digital component. Suppliers also have varying thoughts on how face-to-face meetings for the business events industry will recover. Most respondents (55 percent) believe smaller local and regional events will thrive before national and international groups gather. Sixteen percent predict that small, in-person events will be hybrid, with a digital version for a larger audience. Fourteen percent anticipate pent-up demand for all groups to meet face-to-face; on the other hand, 12 percent expect people to be hesitant to travel to meet face-to-face. One respondent said it’s “all conjecture and guesses” at this time, and another stated that the “global economic crisis will shorten the demand.” Looking forward, suppliers are generally more pessimistic than planners in the short term on the overall revenue impact of Covid-19 on events-related business. For 2021, both suppliers and planners have similar expectations on the pandemic’s revenue impact. Of the planners that responded: • Thirty-eight percent expect a revenue decline greater than 75 percent over the next three months, 39 percent for the rest of 2020, and just 6 percent for 2021. • Thirty-seven percent foresee a revenue decline of 25 percent to 50 percent in 2021, the largest percentage of any category for 2021. • Nine percent believe their events-related business will experience no change to their revenue due to Covid-19 in the next three months, 7 percent for the rest of 2020, and 10 percent expect no change next year. Of the suppliers that responded: • Sixty-five percent believe their revenues will decline more than 75 percent for the year. They are more optimistic for next year, with only 4 percent believing the decline will be that large. • That said, 84 percent of suppliers expect at least a 25 percent decline in 2021, with 39 percent anticipating declines of more than 50 percent. Many expressed budget uncertainty. Some are unsure how to charge virtual attendees for hybrid events that have in-person and digital components, or for live events that have to transition to a completely digital platform. When planners were asked to identify their biggest financial challenge planning a business event in 2021: • Thirty-seven percent responded that it was budgeting/pricing for a hybrid (in-person and digital) event.

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• Twenty-five percent answered that it was how to budget in terms of faceto-face attendance expectations. • Twelve percent are challenged with how to handle increased expenses related to enhanced hygiene and sanitary standards at face-to-face events. The Innovation Group also conducted a series of industry interviews to gain insight into independent and overlapping perspectives of venue managers, organizers and attendees. The following themes were prevalent: Collective Views on Restarting Events

• The value of live events to organizers and participants should remain high, though there is acknowledgement of the difficulty in restarting the industry. • There is a belief that the trade show floor and education opportunities can maintain their basic structure with mitigation measures; however, there will be fewer networking opportunities. • Regional shows could be more likely to begin sooner and experience greater attendance due to drive-in traffic. • Initially, participants may hesitate to attend because of perception about a decline in the overall value (a domino effect), but competitive influences should eventually drive attendance as companies fear they are yielding opportunities to interact with meeting targets. • There is predictable consideration of hybrid live/virtual event formats to capitalize on disparate views on travel, particularly from international markets. Attendees and Buyers

• Individuals and companies are asking themselves when they should resume attendance to industry events and under what conditions. • Buyers are not necessarily aware that they are the key to motivating organizers and sellers to facilitate show production. • Buyers are not optimistic about the long-term potential for virtual events to facilitate business needs. • Attendees are sensitive to the ROI of attending an event and seem responsive to the expansion of tax deductions as a possible motivator, but not at the expense of personal safety. • Attracting buyers is a major expense and is expected to increase in the wake of Covid-19. Organizer Point of View

• Organizers believe they must create incentives for suppliers/exhibitors to offset the cost of exhibiting. • They are talking to sellers to explore incentives that keep shows going and maintain relationships and exhibitor interest, while minimizing their own business risk. • The digital platform has facilitated continuity, but not a viable permanent exclusive business proposition. • Organizers believe sellers need a sense of progress to motivate them to return to the planning and spending mode.

• When leading exhibitors do not participate in events, the incentive for smaller suppliers to participate is also diminished due to a decrease in event credibility, despite the potential competitive advantages of a more exclusive showing. • Exhibitors want and need to get back to selling, but lack confidence in taking business risk, which tax incentives could help counteract in booth design and building expenses, shipping, insurance, installation, labor, etc. • Suppliers and exhibitors want to return to events, but lack confidence that organizers can garner turnout. Perspective of Venue Managers

• Division of responsibility for safety between venues and organizers is being addressed through emerging guidelines. • There’s an overwhelming commitment to bring events back safely. • Instilling confidence in attendees and exhibitors is a formidable challenge. • Venues seem motivated to provide more extensive safety solutions with the possibility of relief, potentially addressing more aspects of the visit than at the venue alone (private transportation, concierge services, etc.). • Venues are supportive of “Go Live Together” and similar initiatives, particularly those public venues that are reliant on additional federal programs and prohibited from lobbying. It has become increasingly apparent that the industry will not experience a material recovery until, at best, Covid-19 trends have been consistently brought down to manageable levels. A fuller recovery is not likely until the successful implementation of a vaccine or effective therapeutic treatment.

Is There An Obvious Path Forward? Putting aside casino convention and event centers, given the magnitude of the meetings industry, we would expect to see a concerted effort to secure relief. Indeed, prominent campaigns have been launched by stakeholders, including “Go Live Together” and other legislative initiatives to provide recovery support. Even small effects from legislative relief efforts could result in big impacts in terms of jobs and GDP. We envision relief designed to simultaneously increase confidence in public safety at events and effectively subside the cost of attendance: • On the supply side, support for event facilities to implement effective public safety measures as well as retain staff expertise. • On the demand side, tax incentives should motivate positive business decisions regarding attending and organizing meetings when budgetary and facility safety concerns would otherwise constrain such behavior. The Innovation Group estimates that relief measures could stimulate between $90 billion and $110 billion in spending on meetings, which would restore 700,000 to 900,000 direct jobs and $50 billion to $60 billion in national GDP. Given the size and nature of the convention industry in Las Vegas, the city may feel the impact and benefit of such relief disproportionally. However, the question remains: if you rebuild it, when will they come?

Exhibitors, Sponsors, Suppliers and Sellers

• Exhibitors are the largest spending group among the stakeholders in the trade show and meetings business. • In larger shows, most exhibitors are still small and medium-sized companies, which have been most substantially affected by Covid-19 shutdowns.

Brian Wyman, Ph.D., is senior vice president, and Tom Zitt, Ph.D., is executive vice president of The Innovation Group. The authors gratefully acknowledge the assistance of the staff of the company in compiling this feature.

OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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FRANKLY SPEAKING by Frank Legato

Modern Gambling

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

clusters of humans on the Strip. They were open at 50 percent capacity, of course. I know it’s not good for the industry to say this, but I love 50 percent capacity. Four to an elevator, and there’s always one ready. Six players to a craps table, which is just enough to make some noise, but nobody’s jostling an elbow into your rib cage. Never anyone sitting right next to you while you’re playing video poker, which I hate. I like to play video poker solo, in a vacuum. Nobody there but me and the cocktail server. The cocktail service was amazing, by the way. It’s evident the South Point employed the usual number of servers with only half the customers. The servers were Johnny-on-the-spot. I was afraid that before I hit a royal, I’d end up in a drunk ward like Ray Milland in The Lost Weekend. There was also great cocktail service at the craps table. There were two $5 tables open at all times, and the social distancing made for a comfortable evening. I even had a few hot rolls, which super-charged the evening with excitement. (Until I lost.) The drinks were served in these little disposable plastic cups that looked like those cups they put sample sausages in at the grocery store. I wasn’t accustomed to drinking my Champagne Krug Clos d’Ambonnay 1995 from such a vessel, but I soldiered through. After I played craps, I went to find my lucky video poker machine, the Game King directly across from Blackjack Pit No. 2, the very machine on which I have hit a royal flush eight times, by my estimation. But they reshuffled the deck on me. Right where my lucky machine was supposed to be, as I would discover later that week, was a test bank of a new game that I actually would sample in one of my Global Games slot manufacturer meetings. I was killing it on this game in the manufacturer’s showroom. They told me it was on test at the South Point, so I had the slot floor supervisor locate it for me. It was right where my Game King should have been. As I would later find out, the game was much more friendly in the showroom than on the casino floor. I went through around $80 in the time it took me to say “Another Maker’s Mark on the rocks, please.” I’m guessing that when they install a new game on the casino floor, they take it off Demo Mode. Too bad. By the way, pushing your mask down below your mouth and leaving it there doesn’t help me at all. It’s not like there are germs coming out of your chin. Just saying. VICT OR RIN ALDO

went to Las Vegas for a week in August. Many of you know this, because I came to visit you and talked about the slot machines you’re putting out in the coming months. Remember? I was the guy with the mask on. I’ve been doing this annual feature since the early 1990s, but in all that time, the thought of getting on an airplane never creeped me out. This time was different. Germs, virus and pandemic, oh my. I was fine, though, because I happen to know a physician who slipped me an extra N95 mask he had. Those suckers are amazing. And I do mean suckers. They suck onto your face like a giant deer tick, sealing off your mouth and nose from anything as annoying as outside air. Nothing gets in, nothing gets out. In fact, it leaves an impression after you take it off. My nose is now even more twisted and freakish than it was, and I have a Fred Flintstone line around the front of my face. (I’m kidding. The disfigurement only lasted a half hour or so.) But at least it made me feel safe for the flights. And I tested negative for the Covid four days after I got back East, so it must have worked. The meetings with youse guys in the slot manufacturing business were all fine, and everyone gave me great stuff, as usual. But outside of business hours, it was my first time in a casino hotel since last February, and my first experience gambling in the Covid era. First, you guessed it. I lost just as much money gambling in the Covid era as I did in the pre-Covid era. Other than that, I had a blast. In the trade these days, I believe they call it “pent-up demand.” As I mentioned in this space in August, I stayed where I always stay, at the South Point, way south on Las Vegas Boulevard from giant

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GOODS&SERVICES KONAMI PROVIDES SLOT CLEANING SOLUTIONS WITH SYNKROS

FSB, BETLION JOIN FORCES IN AFRICA

NOVOMATIC AND AINSWORTH CONSOLIDATE APAC SALES

ince June, Konami Gaming, Inc. has launched slot machine cleaning and customer-care solutions at seven different casino locations. In a matter of weeks, the company developed, tested and deployed a system-delivered solution to help optimize slot machine cleaning between use, and offered it at no cost to Synkros customers. It’s part of ongoing efforts to deliver meaningful support to the health, safety and recovery initiatives of gaming industry operators.

Synkros’ solutions include a mix of real-time communications, alerts and report analytics to help floor staff and supervising teams monitor and manage slot machine disinfecting between use. “In the midst of business closures that occurred beginning in March, Konami’s Synkros team began planning, producing and packaging a set of solutions to assist our users to monitor and manage when slot machines need disinfecting between customer use,” said Tom Soukup, senior vice president and chief systems product officer at Konami Gaming, Inc. “The solutions were seamlessly built into the existing Synkros ecosystem. “Working closely with our casino customers, we responded quickly to their needs, and equipped their teams with the necessary customization options and training for them to automatically communicate slot machine cleaning statuses to their casino guests.” Early adopters of the solutions span locations from California to the Caribbean. To date, seven casinos representing six different jurisdictions have successfully leveraged the technology. The solutions allow players to request slot machine cleaning from a player tracking LCD display, which triggers email, SMS text or administrative alerts to cleaning crews. After a player has finished a session, the machine will switch to an automated “Waiting to be sanitized” message. Once a cleaning crew member has completed cleaning, the machine will switch to an automated “This machine has been sanitized” message, with a time stamp identifying when the cleaning occurred. Throughout the entire process, casino administrators have access to visual floor monitoring of cleaning status and cleaning patterns, to gauge effectiveness and manage staffing. 94

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

SB, a leading iGaming technology provider, has extended its partnership with key African operator BetLion for an additional four years. BetLion made the decision to renew the partnership on the strength of an initial two-year deal that generated significant growth for the operator. BetLion, which is focused on the fast-growing African market, has grown consistently since launching with its FSB-powered online and mobile sportsbook in 2017. FSB’s platform allows operators to enter numerous jurisdictions with a localized offering, which has proven crucial for BetLion. Regulations and customer demands differ in their key territories of Kenya and Zambia, so FSB’s offering has allowed them to play to their strengths. David McDowell, CEO of FSB, said, “We are delighted to have extended our relationship with BetLion for another four years. They have enjoyed incredible growth since launching with us in 2017, and we look forward to more success in partnership with them.”

ustria’s Novomatic AG and Australia-based Ainsworth Game Technology, which is majority-owned by Novomatic, recently announced a joint commercial and after-sales service agreement for the Asia-Pacific region. Novomatic signed a non-exclusive distribution agreement with Ainsworth, whereby the Australian company will act as a sales and service unit for Novomatic products in the APAC region, including Australia and New Zealand. Robert Dijkstra, Ainsworth’s newly appointed vice president of business development and sales, Asia Pacific, will represent both brands. For the five years prior to his new role, Dijkstra represented Novomatic in the Asia-Pacific region, Robert Dijkstra working closely with Ainsworth. Novomatic’s sales manager for Southeast Asia, Michael Barsin, joined Ainsworth on October 1,

ART OF THE BRAND: CARCAMO SHARES MARKETING SECRETS

new manual from casino industry expert Julia Carcamo explains how the world’s top gaming brands stand out despite fierce competition. Reel Marketing—The Art of Building a Casino Brand is a collection of Carcamo’s presentations and writings under the umbrella of what she calls the “Jules Rules of Branding.” Competition for casino customers is more intense than ever, as marketers look to solidify a customer base for the future. Branding now plays a pivotal role, as casino operators large and small attempt to differentiate themselves, not only from industry competition, but from new entertainment options. The easy-to-understand Jules Rules will change readers’ views of marketing and help them build a distinct identity that will resonate with employees, customers and stakeholders, and produce real ROI. Richard Picard, advertising and public-relations manager for Cypress Bayou Casino, said, “All too often, casino marketers get stuck in the weeds of guest valuations, direct mail, reinvestment, entertainment, customer service, leading a team—and the list goes on. They forget the fundamentals of marketing. “Reel Marketing really forces the reader to stop and think about the purpose of the company’s existence, and use information gleaned to build a solid brand.” Reel Marketing is available on Amazon in Kindle and paperback formats. Go to www.amazon.com/dp/B08DHC6KW5.

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and continues to serve the region from his Hong Kong base, representing both brands. The Novomatic product suite for the Asian region consists of leading slot machines, market-focused games and multi-game editions, ETGs, casino management and media systems, linked progressives and sports betting solutions. Ainsworth will launch its new suite of A-STAR cabinets into the region, further complementing its current portfolio of stand-alone, link progressive and multi-games.

GAN SIGNS DEAL WITH CHURCHILL DOWNS

ast August, GAN Ltd. revealed a multi-year agreement to provide a software platform for Churchill Downs internet sports betting and iGaming business, BetAmerica. The deal allows BetAmerica to participate in online sports betting markets by leveraging GAN’s platform. BetAmerica manages sportsbooks in New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Mississippi and Arkansas. GAN CEO Dermot S. Smurfit said, “Our technology platform will power the BetAmerica brand and enable Churchill Downs to invest their marketing capital to attract sports betting and iGaming players.”

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CUTTING EDGE by Frank Legato

Fast Cashless PRODUCT: Cashless Wagering Technology MANUFACTURER: FABICash

artnering with casino management system providers, FABICash has developed FABICashless, a fully cashless gaming experience that sends players straight to the game, skipping cage or ATM lines. The FABICashless Mobile Wallet can be funded directly from the player’s bank account, or by a debit/credit/e-check transaction through the FABICash cash access platform. The player will then transfer the funds onto their game of choice by entering a PIN, and move the winnings back to the wallet just as easily. When a jackpot hits, the attendant will process it electronically at the slot machine, using FABI Mobile Jackpot, which integrates seamlessly with the company’s cashless solutions. FABICash also offers mobile PIN debit and mobile ACH, allowing customers to buy chips in seconds without leaving their seats—just swipe, dip, or tap, print a drop copy and done. Wi-Fi and LTE connectivity and a lithium-

ion battery afford no-fail redundancy. This cashless solution is secure and PCI-compliant. Operators can protect business and customer information with end-to-end encryption, data tokenization and integrated EMV chip sensors. Casino management will enjoy hassle-free settlement and reporting. According to the company, FABICash is the only cash access provider to settle and report transactions to the gaming day, not the calendar day. All cashless transactions are integrated into FABITrack for Title 31 tracking, providing the industry’s only true omni-channel cash access, mobile wallet, electronic jackpot and compliance solution that offers savings, operational efficiency, improved gaming experience and safety for team members and guests. For more information, visit fabicash.com.

Touchless Valet PRODUCT: Valet for Me MANUFACTURER: Refinatrix LLC

ew technology to keep operators’ employees and customers safe upon reopening during the Covid-19 pandemic now extends to the valet parking area. Valet for Me is a complete touchless valet management solution. No more dealing with paper tickets, plastic tags, or community kiosks. It has been designed from the ground up to work safely and seamlessly for business owners, valet attendants and drivers. Drivers have the option of downloading the Valet for Me app on the App Store or Google Play. Doing so allows drivers to create vehicle and bag valet tickets prior to their arrival. Once created, drivers can see the status of their tickets in real time. Tickets move from “Open” to “Parked” to “Requested” to “Closed.” Drivers can request their cars in-app so their car is waiting for them at the valet—this reduces the need to wait at the valet station. Drivers with the app can also pay for their valet tickets through PayPal, Venmo, or Zell Pay (depending on which payment methods the valet accepts). They can also tip their valet using the same payment methods that have been set up by the valet. Drivers who do not want to download the app can easily create their tickets in seconds on the company’s website, valetforme.com, which will them a text message with their ticket number. They can then reply to the text to request their vehicle or bags before heading to the valet station. Drivers who not want to either download an app or go to the website can request that the valet attendant generate a ticket for them. For operators, valets have the full power right at their fingertips to carry

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

out all of the functions they need on a daily basis. These include things like managing parking spots, ticket status, vehicle damages, VIP status, and more. Additionally, business owners can track metrics regarding their valet business in the metrics dashboard. For information, email info@valetforme.com.

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PEOPLE SAN MANUEL BAND OF MISSION INDIANS APPOINTS NEW CEO

he San Manuel Band of Mission Indians has appointed Laurens Vosloo as its new chief executive officer. Since joining San Manuel in 2014 as chief financial offiLaurens Vosloo cer for San Manuel Casino, Vosloo has helped achieve both stability and economic growth for the tribe, said tribal leaders. In his new role, he will be responsible for all day-to-day San Manuel tribal government operations, San Manuel Casino, and other entities. “Laurens has made a significant impact over the past six years, and has become a trusted adviser,” said Ken Ramirez, chairman of the San Manuel Band. “We believe he is the right person to help our tribe chart its path into the future.” In June 2018, Vosloo was named enterprise-wide CFO. From 2014 to 2018, he served as CFO for San Manuel Casino. Prior to joining San Manuel, Vosloo was executive director of finance for the Las Vegas Sands Corp. He started his career at Deloitte in Las Vegas in auditing roles.

CHANGES IN EXEC RESPONSIBILITIES AT SINGAPORE’S MBS

arina Bay Sands (MBS) announced in late August that it was making changes to its executive leadership team. According to a statement from the Las Vegas Andrew MacDonald Sands Corp., which operates the Singapore property, Managing Director George Tanasijevich would focus on local and international expansion, concentrating on new development opportunities in the region as the parent’s managPaul Town ing director of global development. Andrew MacDonald and Paul Town would oversee most day-to-day operations at MBS. Tanasijevich remains involved in MBS’ legal and compliance and government-related matters, as well as the ongoing US$3.3 billion expansion of the integrated resort. MacDonald, MBS’ corporate senior vice president and chief casino officer, is now in charge of all

gaming operations. Town, who joined the company in November 2019, is responsible for all non-gaming operations in his role as senior vice president of resort operations. Together, the pair hold “joint responsibility for the day-to-day operational and administrative functions of Marina Bay Sands,” the company said. It said the changes will help to “enable the future success of the property and maximize our new development opportunity in Singapore.”

LIM LEAVES GENTING HONG KONG ROLE

im Keong Hui, son of Genting Group Chairman Thay, has stepped down as executive director and deputy CEO of Genting Hong Kong. Lim Keong Hui The global cruise ship operator is struggling to endure amid growing debts and the suspension of operations due to Covid-19. On August 28, Genting HK announced Lim’s resignation, in which he said he would devote more time to other business commitments. The 35-year-old is also deputy CEO of Malaysian-listed Genting Bhd, Genting Malaysia Bhd and Genting Plantations Bhd. Lim was appointed to the former role in March 2019. He has been replaced by Group President Colin Au Fook Yew, who oversees Genting Cruise Lines and its three brands: Dream Cruises, Star Cruises and Crystal Cruises. Au has worked in various roles within the Genting Group for the past 40 years. Just days after stepping down, Lim acquired Genting HK’s Zouk Group for SG$14 million (US$10.3 million). Zouk, which was acquired by Genting HK in 2015, operates a nightclub in Singapore and has expanded to Kuala Lumpur and Resorts World Genting.

SZYBILSKI NAMED GUN LAKE FINANCE DIRECTOR

un Lake Casino, operated by the Match-E-BeNash-She-Wish Band of Pottawatomi Indians near Wayland, Michigan, appointed Scott Szybilski director of finance in September. In his new position, Szybilski will contribute to financial strategies and play a strong role in decision-making for the company. He was chosen after a “thorough and indepth application process,” announced Sal Semola, president and chief operating officer of the casino. Scott Szybilski Szybilski has been in the gaming and finance industries for 13 years. Before

joining the company, he was senior vice president of finance at del Lago Resort and Casino in New York state. Before that, he was a corporate controller at Hyatt Gaming Management in Chicago.

MGE APPOINTS LOWRY AGM OF MOHEGAN SUN

ohegan Gaming & Entertainment (MGE) has appointed Kevin Lowry assistant general manager of the Mohegan Sun Connecticut. In his new job, Lowry Kevin Lowry is responsible for finance, gaming, cashiering, and tenant and retail operations at the casino resort. He assumed the position after more than two decades with the company, having begun with the casino’s opening in 1996. He has served as vice president and chief financial officer for Mohegan Sun and Mohegan Sun Pocono.

GGB

October 2020 Index of Advertisers

AGEM . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .73 Ainsworth . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .39 American Gaming Systems . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .2 American Nonsmokers Rights Foundation . . .69 Analog Way . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .79 Aristocrat Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .23 Avalon Gaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .85 Aruze Gaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .15 Bluberi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .33 Casino Player Media . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .53 Cuningham Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .3 Empire Technological Group LTD . . . . . . . . . .51 Erin O'Boyle Photographics, LLC . . . . . . . . . .95 Everi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .5 Fantini Research . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .95 Gaming Laboratories International . . . . . . . . .11 GGB News . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 GGB Digital . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .83 IGT . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .7, 99 Incredible Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .13 IT Technology Solutions (BetConstruct) . . . . .27 J Carcamo & Associates . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .93 Kambi . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .18, 19 Konami Gaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .100 Novomatic . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .31 Pervasive Gaming . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .59 Reed Expo . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .61 Regulatory Management Counselors PC . . . .63 Scientific Games . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .9 Synergy Blue . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .45 Thalden Boyd Emery Architects . . . . . . . . . . .25 The Innovation Group . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .64, 65 TransAct Technologies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .49 WIPFLI/Joseph Eve . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .55

OCTOBER 2020 www.ggbmagazine.com

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CASINO COMMUNICATIONS

Sally Gainsbury Co-Director, Gambling Treatment & Research Clinic and Associate Professor, School of Psychology and Brain and Mind Centre, University of Sydney

ally Gainsbury is one of the world’s foremost researchers into problem gambling, so it’s no surprise that one of the first studies on the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic came out of her group at the University of Sydney. With no funding, Gainsbury, co-investigator Alex Blaszczynski and a team of researchers were able to gather nearly 800 gamblers to ask how their gambling habits changed during the coronavirus lockdown in Australia, one of the most restrictive in the world. She spoke with GGB Publisher Roger Gros from her office in Sydney in July. For a full podcast of this interview, visit GGBMagazine.com.

GGB: You came up with this research study rather quickly, because it was done in the month of May, just two months into the pandemic. How long did it take you to design it and get it off the ground? Sally Gainsbury: The Covid shutdown in Australia

occurred officially on the 26th of March. That’s when all land-based gambling venues across the country were closed by the government. There was no access to electronic gaming machines, which are our poker machines. Also, casinos, keno and wagering in venues all were prohibited. There was still lottery through retail outlets, although there was a stay-at-home order in place, pretty much across the country. So, it was quite restrictive, and (gambling) was mostly online. In Australia, online gambling is limited to purchase of lottery tickets (but not scratch tickets) and online wagering. However, since all of the sports matches were shut down in Australia and mostly around the world, obviously that was very limited. I’m the director of a treatment clinic, and we also pivoted immediately to seeing clients online. We’ve got a research team, so once we got ourselves set up in our online environment, we really started thinking, “Is this an opportunity we can’t miss?” In Australia, gambling has always been so accessible, in every neighborhood. So this was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to study what hap98

Global Gaming Business OCTOBER 2020

pens when you take all of that away. What are the unintended negative consequences? Will everyone just go online? So, we put this survey together. Along with the shutdown of venues, obviously a lot of people were out of work, so we wanted to look at the relationship between gambling, gambling problems, financial well-being and also psychological distress. Because this was a really uncertain, stressful time for a lot of people.

It seems to be heavily skewed toward male respondents. Does that make it a problem?

Possibly, because that would be similar to the fact that 78 percent of our participants had gambled online. What that really means is, since we used online to recruit, we didn’t really capture all the people who gamble traditionally in venues. We mostly captured people who were already active betting online, and in Australia, it’s already a predominantly male sample.

How many people were involved in the survey?

We had 764 people who were recruited to complete the survey, then sent a second survey to those who agreed to be followed up. At last check, around a quarter of those had completed a follow-up survey, which is going to be more interesting, because then we can look at the longitudinal effect, particularly because in Australia we now have a differential situation. Some states have opened up. Some states are sort of opened up, but still have a sense of trepidation. And one state is still entirely locked down. So, now we’ll really be able to start seeing differences between people, based on the different availability of gambling as well.

What were some of the findings?

How did you find these people?

A large number, 63 percent, said they stopped gambling online completely. That’s a pretty significant number.

We didn’t have any money to pay for recruitment, so essentially we begged and borrowed favors. We used social media ads. We got everything approved by (the Ethics Office), so that’s a really important step. Even though it was rushed, we made sure we went through that full process. We put ads up on social media, on Twitter and Facebook. We sent ads out to various groups through e-newsletters, and we ended up with 764 completed surveys that were usable, with no missing data. That was quite good, in terms of our response rate. But this isn’t representative of all of Australia, and we didn’t use any kind of quotas or a panel sample. So, it’s a self-recruited sample, and that’s one limitation. It’s not going to capture everyone or everything.

We looked at the frequency of gambling, which is a quite good proxy for understanding overall involvement. We found that nearly three in four participants actually reported spending less time gambling during the shutdown. Some gambled more—11 percent said they increased gambling. But specifically for online gambling, most people were reducing their time gambling online. About a third had minimal change; 18 percent increased their gambling, and just 1 percent were gambling online for the first time, which again, suggests that this was already quite an active online sample.

I think this reflects the fact there wasn’t as much to gamble on. You’re right, there was some Belarusian soccer, Russian table tennis, there were some esports. But for people who (prefer) betting on more traditional sports, none of these were occurring. How can people get a copy of the report?

It’s available at the University of Sydney Brain and Mind Centre research site (sydney.edu.au/brainmind). There’s a subcategory of our gambling research within the Brain and Mind Centre. You could email me; my email address is available on the University of Sydney website, and I’m on twitter, @DrSalGainsbury. We’re really excited to be able to share this research.

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